Out of Place Revamped
by JC of the Corn
Summary: Fresh out of military service, Jeremiah Cotton thinks his life will be easy from here on out. Oh how wrong he is. REVAMP OF ORIGINAL OCXWinter
1. A Brief Introduction

**Okay everyone, here is the new version, this is just a short intro into it. Now, just so you know, as I said, this one will be a bit more serious, but I'm not abandoning humor entirely. I kind of can't. So this chapter may seem a bit ridiculous at times, keep in mind though, it won't always be like this, every now and then I'll throw in some 'WTF' humor.**

**Reason being well is, If you've ever been near a bunch of Infantrymen, you know we have really fucked up sense of humor and do a lot of stupid shit. I remember one time I saw a guy run naked down the hallway in my barracks only wearing his ACH and screaming at the top of his lungs.**

**Another time in basic training, one guy in his bunk was trying to read the bible was his bunkmate on the top bunk was jerking off. Weird shit happens all the time.**

**Anyways here we go.**

* * *

"Ruby what are you doing?" Yang asked as she saw her sister fooling around with some dust.

"I'm trying out new dusts to really give Crescent rose a punch!" Ruby said as she had test tubes full of dust that she had gotten from Weiss as a gift.

"Is that safe?" Blake asked and was a little worried.

"Despite me thinking Ruby can be a bit reckless, at this point its all just different kinds of destructive dust, what difference does it make if she mixes fire, ice or lightning? All are meant to kill Grimm, so its not like it's any more dangerous than usual." Weiss looked up from her book long enough to say that.

"Alright, if the Ice queen says so." Yang said as Ruby continued to measure set amounts.

In reality, she just wanted to see what would happen when she mixed them all together, she had already experimented with fire and ice dust, and well to be honest, the results were mixed. Sometimes they would work together to pack a punch, but other times they could also cancel each other out, or if the dusts were mixed unevenly, then one element would overpower the other, and make the whole point of them mixing pointless.

Ruby was determined to get this down to an exact science.

"So, anyone else think this joint mission with JNPR is going to be chill?" Yang asked as they all shrugged.

"Well, considering all we're doing is recon and security in an area not heavily guarded by Grimm, and we get to hang out with our sister team, sounds like it will be fun." Blake said as they were glad to have some sort of break in the year.

The last few weeks had been hectic, with missions coming in, and the Vytal Tournament being around the corner, so this mission was a welcome break that they all needed.

"But keep in mind, this isn't going to be a complete vacation, so Ruby don't even think about bringing anything related to games!" Weiss sternly reminded the girl.

"Aww, come on, if anything you should be telling that to Nora." She defended herself.

**Team JNPR**

"Ugggghhhh, this sucks!" Jaune was whining over the new X ray and Vav comic book.

"Whats the matter?" Pyrrha asked trying to see what had got him so bothered.

"They changed X ray's hair!" He said pointing to a page in the comic book.

"Uh….okay?" Ren asked wondering what the big deal was.

"He had nice long hair, but now they gave him some kind of hairdo that looks like something Cardin would have!" Jaune did not like this.

Wouldn't it have made more sense for them to make X ray's hair longer so it gave him the Demigod look?

To be honest, maybe he was thinking too much into it. He had no idea why he was taking this so personal. But it might have something to do with he was still trying to unwind from the stress of the last mission. Needless to say it had been a doozy, but the good news was their next one was going to be chill, and it was a joint mission. So they couldn't complain too much.

"Relax, Jaune, our break is coming up, just a week of relaxing recon and security in a safe area, it will be fun." Pyrrha reminded him as he calmed down.

"You're right, I don't know, that last mission sucked." He shivered as he remembered what happened.

They were told it was a simple mission, but in reality it ended up being a mission to fight off a Grimm Infestation that only experienced huntsman should have been handling. But noooo, instead they got stuck in a nine hour long battle. And it absolutely fucking sucked.

Granted, Jaune was pleased with how much his skills had improved as well as how well his team worked together, so it wasn't all bad. Granted, he didn't want to relive that moment anytime soon. But the point was, there is a silver lining to every dark cloud. Ren in the meantime was preparing for the trip, by packing numerous rations that would keep them running in case anything hectic did happen.

Nora in the meantime was packing all kinds of fun activities in her bag. Jaune had no idea how the fuck she was packing so many games in her pack, but as long as she had the proper packing list, he didn't care. Granted he was sure Team RWBY would tell him to reel Nora in and tell her to stop treating it like a beach vacation, but he couldn't tell her that, she was so adorable when she got excited, like a puppy!

Pyrrha was excited for the trip because chill missions like this where the teams could just bond with each other were a gift in themselves. Plus she would be lying if she wasn't going to try and use it to get closer to Jaune. She had this nagging feeling that maybe he was starting to warm up to her as something more than just friends. But she wasn't entirely sure, it could have been her own hopes and dreams clouding her judgement, so she wasn't going to go full force into this. She didn't want to creep him out and possibly ruin any chances she had with him. So she was going to ease into it, and maybe plant the seed in his mind that she wanted to be more than friends and team mates. But again, it was a challenge, he could be dumber than a bag of hammers. So that was a challenge in and of itself.

Yes, it was safe to say both teams were planning on a great vacation away from the stress of this year.

Who else could be having a great time?

**Meanwhile on Earth**

"HELL THE FUCK YES!" Specialist Jeremiah Cotton yelled out as he held his DD214 in hand.

"I can't believe it…after all this time, its finally here…." The document he held in his hands was better than gold and all the riches in the world.

It was the DD214 signifying his end of active duty. The end of his time in the army. Which meant he could go home and get away from the stress of the infantry.

"So its official, you have your freedom…" One of his buddies said as he stared at the newly released Specialist with Envy.

While the Army had numerous benefits, being in the infantry tended to suck the life out of you like you were Paris Hilton at a Def Leppard concert. Many would appreciate the struggles they went through later in life, but as of right now it sucked ass.

"No more field events, no more 0300 first calls, no more dumb ass layouts because some douchebag lost a Pro mask, I am a free man!" Jem said as he was happy for the oppurtunuity he now had.

"What are you doing to do on the outside?" Another buddy asked.

"Hey, I already got my trade school training from the programs I did while outprocessing, I have plenty of money saved up, and my student loans are gone, as far as I'm concerned, the sky is the limit!"

"Just be careful man, some people get out and spend all their money on stupid shit to celebrate, and then go broke within a few months." PFC Hillis said.

"I've never been broke." SPC Costantine said.

"Bitch you've been homeless!" PVT Snuffy said as it was true.

"Yeah but I was never broke!" In reality Constantine was a cheap bastard who would rather live in a tent all year round then spend money on an apartment or house.

"Look, we're not talking about that, we're talking about Cotton." His friends all stood up and bade him a farewell.

The last one to say goodbye was his old Platoon sergeant.

"Well Cotton, I'm impressed, you managed to get out of the army without a bad credit score, a kid, a divorce, or a muscle car you bought at 20% interest." When Jem had first shown up, he was surprised the kid wasn't a complete dumbass like most brand new privates.

"Wow that's some high praise from you." It wasn't the best of compliments but he would take what he would get.

"So, we all decided we would pitch in and get you a going away gift." One of his buddies came up with a box.

"Oh come on, I already told you guys, buying someone a plaque for finishing a contract is for officers."

"Oh trust me, its not a plaque." And with that they opened the box.

Only to reveal a green dildo with arms and eyes in chains with the base of it having a note saying.

"_I can't hurt you anymore." _

At this, Jem deadpanned.

"Really motherfucker? You got me a statue of the green weenie?" That was some sick shit.

"Yes." His buddies had sick grins on their face.

"So you mean to tell me, you're giving me a symbol of alllll the shitty times I had in the army?"

"Well of course, giving someone a plaque is stupid, this seemed much more appropriate."

"…..Ah fuck it, I love it." He said as he decided to take the statue.

Despite it being a symbol of getting fucked over by the long dick of the army, he appreciated the gesture behind it.

"So what now?" His friend asked.

"Now? I enjoy my freedom, and I already know what the first thing I'm going to do is." Jem said as they leaned forward.

"Drinking!"

"You idiot, you did that every day you were here anyways!"

"Well yeah, but this time I'm drinking out of happiness, not out of wanting to suck start a mortar tube everyday." He shot back.

"Oh yeah, fair enough." And with that, he said goodbye to the men of his platoon.

And he stepped into his piece of shit Dodge Dakota and took a deep breath.

"…..From now on, no more crazy adventures…."

Oh how wrong this poor deluded son of a bitch was.


	2. Beginning of the Mission

**Well guys, here we go once again, now just so everyone knows, despite updating rather quick, don't get used to this. My main priorties in life don't revolve around updating this story. It revolves around work, gym, and trying to save up money so I can get to my future goals faster. Right now, almost paid off my first student loan, should have enough money to buy me a gun and a motorcycle in a few months. **

**Right now, also looking at my options for when I get out of the army, because Illinois sucks ass, and I don't want to move back there, so looking to move states. So trying to see what would be the best option.**

**And no, I will not move to California, that state sucks.**

**Anyways, enjoy the chapter.**

* * *

Jem was in a good mood, he had put up a video on his instagram detailing his recent adventures. And by recent adventures, I mean he posted a five minute video talking about how he couldn't believe his time in the army was up, and he almost cried like a little bitch because he got emotional when talking about how he was going to miss his friends. After he took one last picture of Strike rock, he got back in his truck and began the long drive home. Well, long was only about an 8 hour drive, but in all honesty, he was probably going to make some stops along the way. After all, he had to celebrate, so what better way than touring the US a bit? Granted, there wasn't a lot of places he could visit on the way back, so mostly he was going to stop at some nature reserves. It gave him some time to enjoy the fresh air, take some aesthetic photos, and do some outdoors workouts.

In reality, PT was something he was probably never going to stop. Especially since it was a lot more fun to do on your free time. Again, waking up early in the morning for PT wasn't any fun when you felt like deep throating a shotgun each time you woke up. But whenever he got to go to the gym in the afternoon on his free time, it was fucking heaven.

Now here he was, just relaxing, drinking a beer out by the lake while he was listening to one of his personal playlists on spotify. It was finally starting to hit him that he was finally able to start a new chapter in his life. In all honesty, despite having a plan for when he got out, he still wasn't sure where to begin. He had the job all figured out, he had his hobbies down to a tee, but there was still one matter he wasn't sure how to deal with.

Finding a wife and kids. That was what eluded him the most. Mostly because finding a good woman was hard these days. Or at the very least, one that wasn't insufferable to be around. He knew he had to stop thinking about it so much, if he kept worrying about finding a wife, he wouldn't find one. Plus it was hard for him to think that far ahead considering all the new things he wanted to do now. Eh, he shook the thoughts from his head. I mean, what was going to happen, some woman was going to just fall from the sky into his life? Nah, this wasn't a movie.

"Man, its funny, I hated getting up early in the morning for PT, and yet here I am, up early in the morning so I can watch a sunrise." He thought to himself.

It was funny, suddenly all the little things that used to piss him off didn't seem so bad. Granted, it was probably because he didn't have work to go to in the morning, so maybe he didn't mind. He thought back on all the memories over the years. From when he was going through field exercises with his buddies, to when he was getting drunk in nashville, and to his time in the gym.

A few downsides of being out, no more free gym time. Which sucked, but then again, that was life.

He took a bite out of a protein cookie and started to think back at all the events leading to this moment.

….

Wow, when he thought about it, he really lived an uneventful life until now.

"Shit, I never realized how boring my life was…" Apparently after so many years of being in an environment where you were on edge, he suddenly realized just how boring of a person he was before college and the army.

"Oh well fuck it, back on the road." He said to himself as he needed to come up with something fast.

Because he couldn't live the rest of his life without doing something new or exciting.

**RWBY**

"Geez, Ruby, you sure packed a lot of dust for a simple mission." Yang said as Ruby had a full bag full of ammunition.

"Hey, you never know what could go wrong!" She said as she was just trying to be prepared.

Right now, everyone was sitting on the bulkhead waiting to get sent to the LZ. Both teams were excited, Jaune wasn't feeling sick this time due to taking his motion sickness pills. Nora was looking forward to having fun at a secluded area, however there was one problem.

"No one could chaperone your mission." Glynda said as the teams look disappointed.

"What do you mean?"

"Despite the simple nature of this mission, its still required that you have an official huntsman or hunttress chaperone, and sadly everyone is booked." Glynda was touching her tablet, trying to figure something out.

"Can't you do it?"

"No, I'm far too busy." She said as she was looking through a list of available faculty.

"But what happens then?" Ruby asked as Glynda looked at the.

"You'll have to cancel the mission." She said as a matter of fact.

"Perhaps I could help?" A voice said as everyone saw Weiss's jaw dropped.

"WINTER!" She stood up from her seat in the bulkhead.

"Inside voice Weiss." She said as the specialist came into view.

"Miss Schnee? What are you doing here? We weren't expecting Atlesian personel for another week or two." Glynda was confused.

"I came ahead of the rest of the fleet, I wanted to catch up with my sister." Winter said as she was still retaining her poise.

"But, this all seems out of place." Glynda really couldn't figure out why Winter was here so early, there was no way she was just there to see Weiss.

"I may not be on the best terms with James, but even I know he wouldn't let one of those who he works closely with so far away unless there was a reason." Glynda was rather suspicious.

"Well the truth is that in order to insure the vytal festival is secure that any soldiers who are exeperienced huntsman will also help volunteer to help Beacon Academy with any Grimm stragglers that may be in the surrounding area, that includes recon and surveillance missions such as this, so in reality, this is just General Ironwood taking precautions to make sure that the perimeter is secure." She couldn't argue with that, that appeared to be a good enough reason.

Glynda sighed at it. It didn't surprise her that was the case. Ever since the council had trusted security of the vytal festival to him, he had been rather zealous in his attempts to make things safe. While she could appreciate the help with the missions coming in to free up time for the students for the tournament, at the same time she agreed with Ozpin when he said that the mass amount of troops would bring worry to the people.

But then again, what the hell could she do now?

"That being said, I would like to accompany them on their mission." Winter said as Weiss got excited but everyone else groaned.

"Oh come on, no offense Weiss, but your sister seems like the awfully snooty type and might make us actually work if its nothing but a chill job." Nora said as this was a buzzkill.

"That's not true! We'll still have plenty of fun! I'm sure of it!" In reality, Weiss was just happy to talk to her sister again, even if it was over work.

But sadly the rest of the team were bummed all to hell. While it was nice to see Weiss coming out of her shell. The situation at hand was just a big boner killer. They didn't know enough about Weiss's sister, but based on how she told Weiss to use an inside voice when they were outside, they were going to guess she was the high class military officer type who had to follow every procedure in a strict and orderly military manner.

In other words, most of them thought Winter was the 'stick up the ass' type.

How were they going to have fun when their relaxed mission just became an actual mission!

"This is great!" Weiss however was completely oblivious to her friends suffering.

"I will require a layout of everyone's gear before we go to make sure they packed mission essential equipment." At this, Nora froze.

"_Uh oh, all I did was pack extra pillows, games and lots of food!" _Nora was not about to have fun.

Especially if Winter was the kind to be really anal about that kind of stuff.

**EARTH**

"Huh, weird, My E4 sense is tingling…..someone is about to get the green weenie." Jem said to himself.

In reality, he was just saying that because everyday in the army you were at risk of getting the green weenie, so its not like it was ever a surprise. He remembered one of his buddies accidentally stabbed himself in the leg, and they still made him go out to the field. The Green Weenie did not care for rank, for injury nor time left in service, no soldier was outside of its max effective range.

"Oh well, screw it." It was no concern of his.

Right now he was helping himself to a nice breakfast of blueberry pancakes, bacon, and black coffee. In reality, he could have been back home with his family yesterday, but he was deciding to take some time away before he went back right away, so he stopped at a small mom and pop diner on the way back. He was trying to think about what to do now.

Every Soldier had that list of things they were going to do when they got out. So far he had already cut a pair of his OCP pants into daisy dukes of freedom, he already drank for one last night out in Nashville. He had sold most of his uniform items except for the stuff he wanted to keep. And the best thing of all, he made fun of all the brand new privates straight out of basic who were at the replacement center who had no idea what they were in for.

Now despite Jem making fun of his time in the military, he still liked it. He just hated the green weenie, as all soldiers did. It wasn't uncommon.

He finished his breakfast and got back in his truck. The old beat up shitbox was almost as old as him, but she was still running good. Even if he had probably put more money into fixing it then he paid for it in the first place.

He rummaged through his old cd collection which ranged from Burzum to Elton John until his eyes settled on something. A RWBY soundtrack CD, he had completely forgotten he had it. Hell, to be honest, the last year or so, he hadn't really been paying attention because he had been so busy with preparing to get out of the army that he didn't really have time to pay attention to his shows.

Now that he thought about it, he was probably super behind on a lot of the shows he used to watch. Then again, you invest time into the things you want. And at the time he was more concerned about getting more tattoos and getting swole as fuck.

Mostly because he thought these things would help him with women.

Just one problem.

And to quote Letterkenny.

"Wish you weren't so fucking awkward bud."


	3. Changed Circumstances

**Well, I got to admit, while I'm definately not at the old pace of multiple chapters in a day, I'm actually enjoying writing this story, its a fresh new start on something I enjoyed doing but without being too over the top. I mean sure I'm trying not to drown out everything in realism because that would be too boring, but again, can't have it go to Salem and Sienna fighting with dildos again. Because I will admit, even I can't believe I wrote that scene sober.**

* * *

"Well this is gonna suck…" Nora said as she was now carrying actual gear with her.

Needless to say, Winter had not been pleased with the layout. Luckily however, Nora was able to play it off that she grabbed the wrong bag, and ran back to her room and packed the 'Actual' bag. Needless to say, everyone's moods had kind of soured because their chill vacation was now going to be turned into another old boring mission. Except for Weiss who was catching up with Winter. While the two were discussing matters ranging from fancy topics like memories of past concerts Weiss had performed at or more simple stuff like how school was going and having a blast while doing it. The rest of the teams had been feeling bored as hell.

"Oh my god, what are we going to do now?" Jaune asked as he was getting bored listening to this, and he used to love to hear Weiss prattle on about ANYTHING.

"I don't know, now they're talking about the values of old battle strategies being modernized for a present day army, I get it, its important, but who wants to talk about that all the time?" Even Pyrrha who loved learning about warrior history felt like she was going to jump out of the bullhead.

Surprisingly, Weiss and Winter were completely oblivious to the conversation that was taking place right now.

"Look guys, maybe this won't be so bad, maybe she's actually a really nice person! Weiss turned out to be nice!" Ruby said as everyone deadpanned at her.

"I mean….for the most part…." She said as she munched on a cookie she managed to sneak aboard.

Oh that was another thing, while Ruby did have all the gear that Winter deemed necessary to the mission, when Winter found her extra bag of cookies and sweets, she made Ruby take them back to her room and grab healthy alternatives.

Needless to say, Ruby had not been happy and had kept a few of the bags of cookies by hiding them under her shirt. The fact that Winter honestly expected her to eat nothing but healthy rations for this whole flight was insane. Seriously, was Winter some kind of health and fitness junkie.

She was certain you could be a health and fitness junkie but still enjoy junk food.

**On earth**

"Ah choo." Jem sneezed after he finished his chest day workout at a local gym as he went to afood joint to get something to eat.

He was not a fat kid, he was actually really fit. But son of a bitch, if he could just cut out the fast food and start focus on eating clean, he would be shredded as fuck by now. But at least he didn't have a dad bod, he would never forgive himself if he got to that level.

He may have liked going to the gym like any other gym rat, but on the inside he was a fat kid who loved going out to eat. It was a constant battle of fat vs fit. And it was a pain in the ass.

Jem had been back home for a bit. And well, so far things had not gone as planned. While he still had plenty of money saved up for when he left the military, and was trying to find a new job now, things had been a bit difficult. His truck had been having troubles and it was stuff that he knew he couldn't fix on his own, but evne worse, they were expensive fixes. So again, that was another problem. So now he was riding a bicycle everywhere he had to go, which brought on another problem, he was back living with his parents until he could find a place to live he could afford that was decent, but there was another problem in itself. His family lived in the boonies, so it was at least a good four to six miles away from even the smallest community. And sure, that didn't seem like a lot, but he hated doing cardio. He hated cardio when he was in the army, and he sure as hell wasn't going to like it now.

Unless it was swimming, that was an exception. In fact, anything was better than running. But that was besides the point, nobody liked doing cardio.

So as of right now, Jem had been without his truck for awhile now, he was having trouble finding work because of his lack of a vehicle because all the places he wanted to apply to for machinist positions were all too far for him to bike to and back each morning. So he was at the moment stuck working at a local strip mall gym. Which you may ask yourself? Whats so bad about that? You get to work out for free!

Well, the problem was that small town gyms like that weren't usually big or had a lot of equipment, and this particular one was like Planet Fitness, except for even poorer people. That's right, if you couldn't afford the ten dollars a month at planet fitness, then the local strip mall gym would have you covered.

And it was mostly middle aged women pissed off that their husbands didn't find them attractive anymore, or it was mostly middled aged guys having a mid life crisis trying to get in better shape. While Jem would admit, there was enough equipment in that he could get a decent workout in when he was off work, do you know how creepy it is to have a bunch of cougars staring at you? Literally the only reason they stared was because they were desperate for dick because they weren't getting it anymore. And it made him feel uncomfortable.

Because the cougars were not the ones you would see in magazines that you would want fantasize about. No, instead he got the ones who looked like different evolutions of Snorlax…life….wasn't…..fair.

After he finished his meal, he got back on his bike and started the long ride home, in reality, he knew it wasn't that long of a ride, but he was going to take it easy. And enjoy the scenery on the way back.

To be honest, he thought home would be different, but in reality, nothing had changed since he left. He saw some of the people he went to high school with going to the same old bar they had been getting into since they were sixteen. He rode by the school one time and saw that Mrs. Francois was still teaching 1st grade. How she wasn't dead or retired yet was beyond him, because she was in her 60s when he was in 1st grade. So she had to be in her late 80s by now.

"Hey Jem, how was work?" Momma said as he walked back in.

"I don't like it, I thought working at a gym would be cool, instead you get a bunch of fat cougars trying to feel you up, I can't keep doing that, I'm gonna have to get fat or something, fuck this." Jem was completley honest.

"Now you know how I felt back when I was bartending." His mom said as she dealt with the same thing.

"But come on! I mean, I'm decent looking, but I'm hardly the fitness model they think I am!"

"Jem you have to understand, when you're divorced, in a loveless marriage, or just haven't gotten any dick in a long time, you don't care where it comes from as long as its young and single." Momma said as Jem's face went pale.

"Mom…ew….." He said as his mom was laughing.

"What? I personally wouldn't know, I have your father for that."

"MOM!" He yelled as he didn't want to hear this.

"Oh come on boy, its not the worst thing you've ever heard us say, why I remember one time back in the 90s when we bought this one swing set and-"

"OH FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, I DON'T KNOW WANT TO KNOW!" Yep, and there was the other problem.

You see, he was the last kid to move out of his parents house because he was the youngest. But now that he was back, he had to deal with the fact that his mom and dad had no problem talking about their degenerate sex life. Not because they wanted him to know, but because they got so used to not having their kids around that they no longer had the filter from 18 to 22 years of having kids.

Needless to say, he had learned thigns about his parents that he wish he never found out. Worse, he didn't tell his parents he was coming back on Terminal leave a day early, so he walked in on them in the living room.

Needless to say, he still hadn't been in there since he got back. He also couldn't sleep in his old room because his dad had turned it into storage. Part of it was storing guns and ammo, so he couldn't complain there, but part of it was also golf clubs and random ass sports memoribilia. So again, things had been weird for him moving back.

He had not been sleeping in the actual house, instead he was living in a 1991 mallard sprinter motorhome that he got on craigslist. He got it for a very good deal, only a thousand bucks, of course he later found out that the reason for that was because the last owner had been murdered because he was a crackhead who got into debt with the wrong people.

He still wanted more though, ideally he wanted to see if he could find a nice house to live in, but until then, living in the motorhome would work. Even if it still smelled like crackhead.

After talking to his family for a bit more. He went back outside to his motorhome and did his nightly ritual of fixing and cleaning at least one part of it. The way he saw it, once he found a decent house he wanted to buy and live in, he could sell this motorhome for more than he paid for it with all the work he did on it. And use the money for something else.

He expected his truck back within a week if everything went as planned. At least he didn't have to worry about student loans anymore at least.

Overall though, his life was not that bad, sure while some things didn't go as planned, you couldn't expect everything to go exactly as you pictured it. Sometimes life was like that, you had to take what you could salvage from the situation. While he didn't necessarily want to be living in a motorhome taking a bike to work, he knew this was temporary. And even then, he still had someplace to sleep, he had good food, and best of all, he had the oppurtunity to make his life better. And who really even needed all this fancy stuff in the world.

While he used to think success was measured by how much stuff you owned, he found that people became so obsessed with collecting every little thing that was related to their obsession, they never asked themselves if they really needed it.

Do you really need to collect a funko pop version of Yang Xiao Long who did nothing but sit there as a cute display piece? No, so he had sold a lot of the stuff he had that was collecting dust not really serving a purpose.

He was not a minimalist by any standards, he simply didn't like buying things he knew wouldn't serve a purpose other than looking good in a collection. His only exceptions to that was his dvd and book collection. But even then it was just a collection of works he enjoyed and could reread or rewatch over and over again without getting bored.

What he was trying to say was even though life didn't go as he planned. He wasn't nearly as wealthy as he hoped to be at this point in his life, he didn't have a wife and kids yet, he didn't have his motorcycle. But either way, he was happy and still working to improve his life anyways. He still had so much of his life left to live, and he would be damned if he spent it being pissed off about the things he didn't have.


	4. Jem Can't Get A Date

**Okay, so I lied, I will be putting another chapter out today. I had my coffee, and I just needed to put out another chapter. As you can see, I am not having the team go to Jem right away this time, because I wanted to do things a bit differently. And while I had a good idea of what I wanted RWBY and JNPR to do before they meet Jem, it was a bit difficult to figure out what I wanted Jem to do in his free time, considering most of the events of the original out of place only happened after they arrive.**

**So yes, there will be filler.**

* * *

"Oh my Oum, this is boring as hell." Yang said as they had holed up in an abadoned structure and would told to stay put.

Winter had gone out on a leaders recon with Team JNPR, leaving Team RWBY to pull security until they got back to report. Only problem was that because none of them had any forms of entertainment to pass the time. They were either stuck trying to talk to each other, or cut the blades of grass in front of them.

"1,123." Ruby counted another blade of Grass.

"Hey! At least we still got to come." Weiss said just happy to be there.

"But your sister is taking this pretty seriously for a simple mission." Blake added in as she wasn't a big fan.

She had gotten over her hatred of the Schnees because of the SDC's treatment of Faunus after realizing that Weiss and Winter were not like their father. That being said she was starting to grow a new resentment for the Schnees on account of how bored she was getting. It didn't help that the bag that Winter made Nora take back to her room also had some of Blake's tuna in it. That was what REALLY got her pissed.

You could beat her and insult her, but don't fuck with her tuna.

"I'm sure she'll lighten up once she gets back from her recon." Weiss said with confidence.

"Will you listen to yourself? You're making it sound like she's treating it like a military exercise!" Blake said being disgruntled over the fact that she was forced to eat some of the prepared rations.

She picked this one MRE because it said 'Tuna Chunks' all it had was a pack of Lemon Pepper tuna and some Mayo, that wasn't a meal, if anything it was what you gave a stray cat on the street because you took pity on it. Not something meant to help you survive.

"You realize what our job is right? Protect and serve? This isn't much different from the military, so she's just taking control of it and helping it run in an orderly fashion!" Weiss would not tolerate any insults to her loving big sister.

"Well orderly military fashion is hella boring! Don't try to say otherwise, I saw you falling asleep because of her stupid 'safety brief' when we were flying here." Yang said as Weiss shut up.

Okay that part was true, but she still stood by what she said. It was important they take this matter serious. Then again, she did remember she was looking forward to a nice relaxing day too. So maybe her love of her sister was overriding her need for relaxation.

"1,247…." Ruby was still counting.

"Look Weiss, if it was any other huntsman or hunttress who was shadowing us for this mission, and they were doing the same thing, wouldn't you be complaining?" Yang said as Weiss looked away.

"I'm not going to dignify that with a response!"

"So that's a yes!"

"I said I wasn't going to-"

"Yeah yeah, you also pretty much admitted that I'm right! If you have to use 'I'm not going to dignify that.' That usually means you have no ground to stand on!" Yang had no idea why Weiss was being so stubborn about this.

"Okay, well, I'm sure she'll let loose once she comes back." Weiss said trying to defend her sister.

"Oh please, it took us forever just to get you to stop being so frigid, I don't even want to know how long this one will take."

"HEY!"

"I'm back." Winter said as she walked back with Team JNPR.

Jaune looked like he was ready to kill himself out of boredom. Pyrrha's eyes while attempting to show here positive outlook on life couldn't hide the fact that she was dead inside from the sheer boredom that was overtaking them. Nora looked ready to explode in anger because she had been forced to hike with nothing to do. She enjoyed hiking, but you want her to be QUIET and not point out all the fun things that nature offers? That's some cruel shit.

Ren however seemed completley unaffected. But everyone knew that was just how the boy was.

"After careful consideration, this area is clear, meaning we can drop full security and go 20% on with 80% off." Nobody had any idea what she meant.

"That means two up and seven can relax." Everyone then shrugged.

It wasn't much, but it was better than nothing. Although it did kind of suck that two people would have to be bored out of their skulls staring out and making sure things were still secure.

"Alright! Finally I was getting bo-" Ruby was about to finish her sentence until Winter cut her off.

"Ruby and Weiss, you'll take the first shift."

CR-ACK!

You could hear Ruby's world shatter as she realized she was getting screwed with the first shift.

"The rest of you can relax as soon as I check to make sure your weapons are still in working order." Everyone groaned.

They needed something exciting to happen soon or else there would be a mutiny.

**On Earth**

"Say Jem, we're doing a group 'boot camp' fitness class in one of the rooms, maybe you could help us with some of our customers?" Sally Mae, the owenr of the local gym Jem trained at asked him.

"Boot camp fitness camp?" He asked.

"Yeah, you know, its an aerobics course with a military theme, it will be fun!" She said as they had t shirts.

"…Why is it called boot camp then?"

"Oh you know, because it's meant to make you sweat!" She was too positive for her own good.

"Uhm….I reallllllyyyy don't think I should be involved, I'm just going to go back to my weights." He said as he really didn't want to be involved in that.

"Come on, surely you can share some of the things you did in the military with us?" Jem thought back to it.

He remembered one time when some guy in his unit lost his NODS, and as punishment, the whole company was forced to lunge to a stop sign a mile down the road, sprint back, and then lunge back, then burpee long jump back again, and then lunge again, and then sprint again. It was fucking miserable.

He remembered Constantine threw up when he went to go take a sip out of his water bottle, only problem was some of his puke landed in his water bottle, and because he didn't have another water source, he said fuck it, and drank it anyways.

And then to top it all off, turns out the lost NODS actually belonged to the CO. And to make matters worse, they were never lost, he just forgot to turn them back into the arms room after the field problem was over.

Needless to say, everyone in the company thought about killing him.

"Yeah, I really shouldn't…..I kind of need this job…." Jem said as he ran away before she could ask him again.

Usually he would find any excuse to delay more exercises for leg day, but this time he was attacking leg day with gusto just because he didn't want Sally Mae to ask him again. She was way too chipper for her own good, don't get him wrong, he liked positive people, but for gods sake, it was like talking to a cartoon character.

He took a sip of some pre workout he got from Sweden. He couldn't pronounce the name, and he wasn't even sure if it was from a Legitimate business or not, but one thing was for sure, it was potent. And he was loving it.

"Uhm, Mister?" He took his earbuds out to see a cute girl was talking to him.

Oh boy! This was great! A cute girl coming up to him in the gym! This was good news! You see, when you're a guy, its generally difficult to hit on a girl at the gym, because you don't want to look like that creepy dickhead trying to pick up a girl when they're focused on their workout. But when a girl approaches you? Suddenly you're in the clear?

"Yes miss?" He asked trying and failing to be suave.

"I was just wondering…" She was looking nervous to ask him the next question.

"Yeah?" He felt butterflies in his stomach, maybe she wanted his phone number?

"Well, if its okay with you…." She was playing with her hair as she seemed unsure of how to proceed.

"I'm sure I'll be fine with it." He was trying to reassure her.

She gave a smile in return, and he knew he was in.

"Okay, well do you think you could help my boyfriend get bigger?"

"_**AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" **_He screamed internally as she pointed her thumb back to someone.

He looked to where she was pointing, and he saw a very weak and decadent man standing with the pink dumbbells struggling to lift those. His eye twitched as he saw her boyfriend had long hair down to his shoulders, a very petite frame, and was wearing a shirt that said 'The future is female.' On it.

"…_..Jesus…..Christ…" _He thought to himself.

But he forced a smile onto his face.

"Sure, I'll help him….." He said as she smiled.

"Good! All the other boys in his college class pick on him!" She said as she went over to her boyfriend to bring him over.

"_Yeah…..theres a reason for that…..How is he dating her? He either has a great personality….a great sense of humor….or a giant cock…..or all of the above…..goddam it." _Jem was trying not to be a dick and end up like one of those incel neckbeard pussies.

That being said, he still did not like this guy.

"Uhm…..thanks mister…." The feminine guy said in a light voice as he played with his hair.

"…Jesus, we got a lot of work to do on you boy." Jem said as he looked him up and down.

"First thing is getting yourself a new gym outfit…."

"And also maybe a haircut…." His girlfriend spoke up at that.

"I love his long hair!" Okay scratch that.

"Okay…..hey can you leave us alone together?" He said as she nodded.

"Bye sweetie! I'll be back to pick you up after work!" She said as she walked out of the gym.

And then Jem glared at the twink in front of him.

"Okay, so first things first, and I mean this with no disrespect, but how the fuck are you dating her?" He needed to get that out of the way.

"Oh, well, we met at school, and we were lab partners, she liked how I was more an intellectual instead of a brute….no offense." The boy said as Jem face palmed.

"None taken, anything else?"

"Well, I also have a rather large-"

"Say no more, anyways, why are you wearing that tank?"

"Oh, well, I don't own any gym clothes, so I borrowed this from my sister, why whats wrong with it?" He asked as it fit him.

"…..So much….okay, first off…." Jem reached into his bag and pulled out a tank.

"Go in the bathroom, put this on, and then meet me by the dumbbell racks over there."

"But…..I can't lift those…" The boy said.

"How do you know?"

"Well….I've never tried those."

"Exactly, you've never tried, and now you're going to try." Jem said as he shooed him into the bathroom.

Jem then went over to the wall and put his head against it.

"Well, despite the fact that this still kind of hurts, at least I have my own little brotege." He felt a tap on his shoulder.

"I'm ready!" The boy said as Jem's Ulfhedinn Tank top looked too big on him.

"…..Whats your name?"

"Alex!"

"Okay, lets get to work." Jem decided to just go along with it.

**A FEW HOURS LATER**

"I'm back and….is he okay?" The girl asked when she saw her boyfriend sitting on a bench drinking water slowly.

Needless to say, Jem had shown no mercy, while he did have to help Alex lift even the 20 lb dumbbells, he still made him do a basic upper body workout with bench, shoulder press, dumbbell bench press, curls, reverse curls, and tricep pushdowns.

During the workout, Alex turned out to be a nice kid, but goddam, how did he still look like a 12 year old when he was 21?

"I did it!" Alex weakly said as his girlfriend swore she could see his soul leaving his body.

"Same time tomorrow?" Jem asked as Alex nodded.

"I'll be there." He got up to walk with his girlfriend.

"Ooooh, I hope you have time for our _cardio session." _His girlfriend whispered in his ear.

"Oh stop it!" Alex giggled as Jem watched them walk away.

"…..He gets a hot girl, and I get stuck with all the cougars in here…..did I do something to piss off the gods?"

He wasn't asking for a woman to fall out of the sky, but goddam would it kill the gods to throw him a fucking bone?


	5. Winter's Excellent Adventure

**Okay everybody like I said, I'm feeling a rush of motivation when it comes to this. And I've had my coffee, as well as a decent lunch, so here I am typing away again. **

**Now, I have changed it a bit. And you'll definately see how this varies from the original out of place, since I don't want to just redo the whole thing all over again. For example, if you take a look, you'll notice that Jem isn't a high functioning alcoholic anymore.**

**The story is in general more chill. **

**And above all, I gave a bit more background rather than just having RWBY automatically transported to Earth.**

**Granted I will admit, the crack will not completley go away, and some things have changed significantly.**

**For example, Jem will not be Qrows son in this, because the only reason I got away with that in the first one was because it was mostly crack. And in this new fic, I wouldn't be able to get away with that. Plus I really don't want to bring the midget stripper character back. So yes, Jem is not adopted in this one.**

**Anyways have fun.**

* * *

Jem sighed as he got home after the gym. Just his luck, he finally meets a girl, and turns out she has a boyfriend who practically is a trap. It wasn't fair. Then again, most of his information on girls came from movies. And we all know how realistic those are. But in reality, he will admit one thing, while he spent a lot of time building up his body from what he used to be. He also forgot to develop social skills. And that was something that the army had helped with, even if he was still socially awkward as fuck. The point was, while he may look attractive on the outside, it didn't matter if you couldn't hold a conversation that was interesting to the girl in question. You could have the body of Bradley Martyn, but if you sucked at talking to girls, it wouldn't matter.

Shit he remembered one time he was at a bar and kept stuttering and the girl he was talking to thought he was retarded. It was not fun.

"No luck today?" Grandmama asked as she took dinner out of the oven.

"Well, the one girl who was actually my age turned out to be dating this one guy who I honestly thought was a girl." Jem said as he cracked open a Radler.

"Maybe you're trying too hard with the gym?"

"Nah, can't be that, at this point I go to the gym for myself, and just hope that I meet people along the way."

"Well, don't you think it's a bit odd that you spend time obsessing over your own body? And don't even get me started on the posters I've seen in your motorhome." Grandmama said as Jem groaned.

"They're for inspiration!" He was used to his Grandmama teasing him like this.

"I'm sorry sugarcube, you know I love you. I'm just saying, some women may find your obsession with making yourself look like the statue of a Greek God unappealing. Some women would consider that borderline narcissism." Grandmama was spitting words of wisdom.

"Okay, no argument there, I don't deny I'm a bit of a narcissist, but come on, when you start seeing results, can you really say that nobody ever feels like a narcissist? I mean, hell, don't you ever look in the mirror and go 'Damn, I am a catch." He asked as his Grandmother gave him a plate of food.

"All the time, I'm just saying though, that's in private, its okay to admire yourself in private, but in public you have to do it tastefully." She sat down across from the table.

"Speaking of which, How is Grandad doing?" Jem hadn't seen him in a bit.

"You know your grandfather, after his recent heart attack and the doctor suggested he have a live in nurse, he fired her almost immediately and got back to work." His Grandmother giggled at her husband.

"Heh, I love that old man. He could die tomorrow, and someone would say he was missing an honest days work, and it would bring him back to life." Jem said as he was certain his Grandfather HATED vacation time.

The old man loved to work. He got his first job working on the farm when he was a kid going through the great depression, fought in WW2, worked as a mechanic for thirty years, you would think then he would have gladly spent his last years in peace enjoying the retired life. But he was retired for a year and hated it and went back to work.

Now that he thought about it, he aspired to be like that one day. A bad ass old man who did not give a single fuck. But who knows if he would ever be like that?

"You just got to stop worrying about women so much my little Jem." Jem groaned as she called him that.

"Please don't call me that, you promised after I grew taller than you that you would stop saying that." At this she smirked.

"I lied."

"Of course you did…"

"My point is, you worry too much about finding the right girl that you ovethink everything and tend to either scare them away or miss obvious hints, you just have to stop worrying about getting a woman to like you and wait for someone to come to you." She said as he raised an eyebrow.

"Isn't that kind of counter productive? Just wait? Nothing good ever came from waiting and sitting around doing nothing." At this she shook her head.

"No no no, I don't mean just sit at home and have a miserable shut in existence like some of those uhm…intellectually gifted but socially awkward individuals you went to school with." Grandmama was trying to be classy.

"You can call them geeks Grandma."

"I don't like that term, but my point is, you can still obviously go out and talk to women without thinking about dating, and before you know it, maybe you start to talk to one without thinking she could be your wife one day, and boom, instant grandbabies!" At this he deadpanned.

"Why is it so important for me to have kids?" He groaned as his grandmother laughed.

"Because your brother only gave me one grandchild, and your sister is going to be single for the rest of her life if she doesn't stop the no nonsense ballbreaking bitch routine." At this Jem choked on his coffee.

"Woah, Grandma, easy there with the insults."

"What? I'm serious, I can understand trying to portray yourself as tough, but acting like a stick in the mud never got anyone anywhere."

"Fair enough, still though, you're in your 80s, shouldn't you be trying to say nicer and sweeter grandma things?" He asked as she shook her head.

"Just because I still make you pancakes with a bacon smiley face doesn't mean I'm not allowed to call a bitch a bitch." She said as Jem chuckled.

"Even though I don't like hearing you cuss, I guess it is kinda funny to hear you say that." At this she just laughed with him.

"Hearing me cuss? You used to say Fuck as a verb, adjective, noun and pronoun." She giggled.

"Yeah, but I was in the military."

"And I was married to your Grandpa, trust me I've heard words you've never even heard of before."

"Point taken."

Oh well, it was time for Jem to sit down and have dinner with his family before returning to the motorhome for the night. More and more he had been working on repairs on that old thing, and with enough time, he maybe might even be able to travel in it. That would be a great way to travel across the US.

Granted, it still had a long ways to go.

But he had nothing but time now.

**RWBY**

"OH COME ON!" Ruby whined as she finally got off her shift.

Only for Winter to say she wanted to test her to make sure she was a worthy partner for her little sister. In other words, she wanted Ruby to demonstrate her skill with her weapon.

"I just got off of my shift!" She said as she really wanted to kick back and relax like everyone else had been doing.

"I know, I didn't want to interrupt your shift, so I waited until you were done." Winter said as if it was common sense.

Ruby would admit one thing, she did not get along with Weiss at first, but eventually they started to become good friends, with that being said, she was NOT enjoying this whole thing with Winter. She was very demanding and kind of bossy, again just like her sister, but the difference is that Ruby could see an end in sight when it came to Weiss, with Winter it was like dealing with Weiss on steroids. But there was one big major difference.

When Weiss was acting like an Ice Queen, occassionally she would do something mean that she was clearly in the wrong for and later apologized for it. Winter was actually making factual sense, so in other words, Ruby couldn't fight against that or she would seem like a child.

"Don't you think you should at least give her a few minutes to herself so she can rest up and get some food? She did just come off a guard shift." Yang asked as Winer nodded.

"I'll give her ten minutes." She said as she sat down by the fire.

Meanwhile Yang went to go talk with Ruby.

"You okay sis?"

"Ugh, no, its like dealing with Weiss after the crater face incident but even worse!" She pouted as she was getting Crescent Rose ready.

"Chin up, maybe you can do what you did with Weiss and get the Ice Empress to thaw a bit." At that, Ruby looked at her confused.

"Ice Empress?"

"Hey, Ice Queen was taken, and Empress sounds more senior, so hence why the senior Schnee is nicknamed Empress." Yang explaine herself.

"Okay, I still don't want to do this." Ruby said as she went through her dust pouches.

"Isn't that the ammo you just made?" Yang asked as she looked at a small box of dust ammunition that was labeled 'Friendship ammo'

"Oh this? This was something me and Weiss made together!" Ruby said as Yang raised a brow.

"Is that why its called Friendship ammo?" She asked as it had a picture of a heart on it.

"Yep, we haven't tested it out yet, so I don't even know what it does yet! But now is as good of a time as any." She said as she loaded some of the rounds into Crescent Rose.

"Is that really safe?" Yang was a bit worried about what could happen.

"Of course, its just dust! At most it will cause an explosion of excessive magnitude, but that's about it!" Ruby hummed as her earlier anger was forgotten as she was lost in the excitement of testing her new ammo out.

"Excessive magnitude?"

"Woops, sorry, been watching a lot of Loon Loon Toons." She said as she remembered the one alien character talking about big kabooms.

"New ammunition you say?" Winter appeared.

"EEP!" That came out of nowhere.

"I would like to see what you and my sister have created." Winter had to admit, she knew about her sister's work with dust, but combining them into something new? She had to see this.

"Uhm okay." Ruby said as she cocked Crescent rose.

"Wait!" Winter looked around and then turned Ruby towards an abandoned structure about 100 feet away from them.

"Aim at that, I don't want to take any chances." She said as she wasn't sure what was about to happen.

"Ruby! Are you sure that's a good idea?! We haven't tested it yet!" Weiss was a bit worried.

"Come on Weiss, no guts no glory right!" Ruby said as she took aim.

"If you haven't tested it yet, why is she carrying it?" Winter asked as Weiss looked down.

"Well, we were going to test it out on this mission."

"So I don't understand, whats the problem?"

"Well, we don't know if it will be a dud or not…" Weiss didn't want to embarrass herself in front of her sister.

"Ah chin up! It will be okay." Ruby said as she pulled the trigger.

They heard the sound of something akin to a bottle rocket go off from Ruby's scythe.

_**TINK**_

That was all they heard as they saw a small piece of the stone structure she was aiming at barely took any damage.

Everyone was silent as Weiss's eyes twitched, Winter looked on in disappointment, JNPR an the rest of RWBY while disappointed were also trying not to laugh. And Ruby was trying to figure out what went wrong.

"Where is the kaboom? There was supposed to be a boulder shattering kaboom!" She yelled as the freindship dust didn't go as planned.

"Well, I think its safe to say that-"

_**WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHhh**_

Suddenly everyone felt themselves gripping onto something tight as a big star swirled vortex opened up in front of them, causing everything within a 100 foot radius to be sucked towards it or into it.

"RUBY! WHAT DID YOU DO?!" Weiss yelled as she didn't know what was going on.

"I DON'T KNOW IT WAS SUPPOSED TO EXPLODE! THAT'S WHAT YOU TOLD ME!"

"I NEVER SAID THAT! I SAID IT COULD EXPLODE!"

"WELL THEN WHAT ELSE WAS SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN?!"

"I DON'T KNOW?! NOT THIS!" Weiss said as Winter felt her grip loosening.

"OH NO!" She said as she was hanging by the fingertips.

"AAAAHHH!" She yelled as she was sucked towards the vortex.

"WINTER!" Weiss yelled as she saw her sister get sucked in the vortex.

"NO!" She yelled as she let go to go after her.

"Wait sto-" Only to hit Ruby on her way towards it.

"OUCH!" Both the girls were sucked in.

"RUBY!" Yang yelled as she saw her sister get sucked in and immediately let go to go after her.

"DAMMIT YANG!" Blake yelled as she soon went after her partner.

And Team JNPR.

"YOU GOT TO BE KIDDING ME?!" They all yelled as they soon sighed and just let go and let themselves get sucked into the vortex.

Oum knows they had to go save their sister team.

The vortex closed up right behind them. Leaving a very confused Crow. Who had shown up just as the vortex closed, and he could have sworn his niece's team was camping here for the night? But he saw no trace of them, so maybe he got mixed up?

**WINTER**

"WHAT IS GOING ON?!" She yelled as she could still breath, she wasn't in any pain. But she could see stars and some kind of cosmic energy swiling all around her.

She felt herself going through some kind of wormhole as it felt like she was just falling constantly. But she had no way of stopping herself or slowing down.

"CAN SOMEONE STOP THIS CRAZY THING?!" She yelled as this was the first time she had lost her cool.

And if her prayers had been answered, she saw something at the end of the wormhole.

It was….white and blue…it appeared to be a vehicle! And…..And…

She was about to crash right into it.

"OH NO!" She yelled as she braced for impact.

**Jem**

"Ahhhh, I finally got the engine fixed!" Jem said as he was proud of himself.

The old beat up motorhome he had was finally ready to go on the road. He considered the endless possibilites he had for road trips now.

"Maybe I'll go to the badlands first! Or maybe further down south first! Or maybe to New York City! Or maybe-" And all of a sudden.

Something happened.

He heard the sound of something crashing into his roof, causing the top of his motorhome to cave in, and for some of the glass to be blown out onto the pad he was parked onto. The resulting force of whatever it was that landed on his ride also crushed certain parts of the engine meaning that all the money and work he just spent on it was completely wasted.

"….." He was silent.

And then his eyebrow started to twitch.

"WHAT…THE….FFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK?!" He screamed out in rage.

"Are you fucking kidding me?!"

"I FINALLY GET THIS SHIT FIXED UP AND A FUCKING TREE COLLAPSES ON IT! FUCK THIS STUPID SHIT!" He yelled as he kicked a rock away.

He was certain it had to the tree he was parked under that caused it. Because what else could have fallen out of the clear sky.

Grumbling and pissed off, he opened the door to his motorhome.

"WHATEVER THE FUCK RUINED MY MOTORHOME I SWEAR TO GOD I WILL CUT THAT THING INTO A MILL-" Suddenly he was speechless.

Because sitting on his bed was a woman with white hair, whose clothes had been torn and ripped. And above all else, she looked scared as to what just happened, and adding onto the fact that she obviously had no idea where she was, she was freakin out.

Meanwhile Jem was looking her over, noticing her hair and her state of attire was similar to Winter Schnee from RWBY. But it obviously wasn't her, I mean come on, that shit only happened in really shitty fanfiction made by authors trying to indulge in a masturbation fantasy.

So…his brain came to one logical explanation.

"…..Did…..Did the gods just give me a big tittied cosplay girlfriend?"


	6. I must be dreaming

**Okay I'll be honest with you guys, I wasn't sure how I was going to write this part, so I did my best. At this point, just consider this a chapter to move the plot forward and nothing else.**

**On an unrelated note, is it weird how most of my social media accounts I never wanted anything to do with, but now I'm addicted to? I mean shit, I used to think Instagram was stupid, but its really handy for keeping up with fitness accounts and shit.**

* * *

Jem was honestly still shocked, so this big tittied cosplayer crashed through his roof. And had completley fucked up his motorhome. And was now sitting there looking around trying to figure out what was going on. And that was when she locked eyes with him. And by that, I mean she freaked out, pinned him against the wall and had a dagger to his throat.

"URK!" He said as he was not expecting this.

"WHO ARE YOU?! WHERE AM I?! AND WHAT DID YOU JUST CALL ME?!" She demanded to know as Jem was suddenly very confused.

"HOLD THE FUCK UP! YOU BREAK INTO MY HOME! AND DEMAND SHIT OF ME?!" He said even though his home was a motorhome and it wasn't hard to break into.

"Answer the question!"

"Who am I? I'M PISSED OFF THAT'S WHAT I AM!" Jem was just being honest.

Like seriously, he JUST finished getting this thing refurbished. And believe it or not, his shock of the gods giving him a big tiddy cosplay girlfriend had worn off as soon as she held the dagger to his throat.

"Why you-" Suddenly Winter heard a scream.

"LOOK OUT!" Weiss screamed as she slammed right into Winter along with Ruby.

Which in turn took the dagger away from Jem's throat as his mouth went wide at the fact he just saw two more people fall out of nowhere.

"….Did….Did they just fall out of a portal?" He said as he saw two more cosplayers, but this time they were dressed up as Weiss and Ruby.

"What the tit fuck?" He said as this was getting weird.

"Owwww." Weiss said as Winter groaned from having two girls on top of her.

"Look what you did you dunce!" The Weiss cosplayer said in a voice that was WAY too accurate.

"I'm sorry! But you helped me make it!"

"I told you it wasn't ready!"

"If it wasn't ready then why did we already put it in bullet form?"

"Because those were to be tested you dolt!" Winter pushed the two girls off of her as she growled.

"Where did that-"

CH CHUNK

Suddenly Winter looked up and she saw the one guy from before, looking very pissed off and holding a 12 guage shotgun.

"Alright, you three have about ten seconds to explain what the hell you're doing on my property in MY TRAILER!" Normally Jem would be calm, especially when it came to a hot girl.

But considering the shit he just saw, he was not going to take this lightly. Especially since that Winter Schnee wannabe just put a dagger to his throat!

"N-Now sir, theres no need for violence." Ruby said in a nervous tone as Winter decided not to test her luck.

"Sir, I would recommend you put that shotgun down."

"You're telling me that when you're the one trespassing on my property? Dressed like anime characters?"

"What are you even talking about?!"

"Oh come on, do you really think I'm stupid, just because you're pretty doesn't mean I'm not going to treat you like a threat, I JUST SAW TWO OF YOU FALL OUT OF A PORTAL!" He said as he heard the sound of something else open up.

"AAAHHHH!" He saw a Blond hair girl fall from the sky and land on his old treehouse and destroy it.

"…I fucking loved that treehouse…" Jem couldn't believe he just saw one of his most treasured childhood memories get destroyed.

Wait a second.

"ANOTHER ONE?!" He yelled as he couldn't believe it was happening again!

"Look, Sir! Theres a completely normal explanation to this!" Weiss said trying to calm everyone down.

"Bullshit!" He yelled back as he backed further away.

"Let me handle this Weiss!" Winter said as she had her weapons ready.

"Winter! You're scaring him!" Okay now this was just getting weird.

These cosplayers had to be really into this, because they were even talking to each other in character despite the fact they seemed to come out of nowhere. He was so confused, and he was freaking out, and he was not a happy camper.

"She's not scaring me! She's pissing me off! Look what you did to the love machine!" He pointed back at his motorhome as everyone cringed at how it was totaled.

"Ugh, horribly named, I doubt any woman would go in there." Winter quipped as he glared at her.

"Who did I just find on my bed again?" He quipped back as she looked pissed.

"How dare you-" Weiss put a hand over her sisters mouth.

"Look sir, I'm sure we can discuss this in a civilized manner!" So far this was not going as planned.

"LOOK OUT BELOW!" Jem groaned as he heard more voices cry out.

"ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS?!" He yelled as he looked back in the sky waiting for the next crazy thing to happen.

And sure enough, more cosplayers came out of nowhere, only this time they were dressed as Team JNPR, and they all landed straight in the compost pile he had over by the garden. In other words, they were not going to be happy when they realized what had happened.

"….This is all a dream, this is all just a very…intense….dream…" Seriously this shit was giving him anxiety.

"Uhm guys?" The one dressed as Yang asked.

"Where's Blake?" She asked as she wasn't with anyone.

"Hey you're right, we haven't see her yet." Ruby pointed out as they heard barking.

"AAAHHHHHH!" Blake yelled as she was running away from a BIG FURRY DOG that looked like the love child in a st bernard, husky, great dane threeway.

Jem groaned as he noticed Zeus was not chasing after this one because he was going to attack her, he ws going after her because he loved making new friends. He was probably the worst watch dog ever.

"GET HIM OFF ME!" Blake said as the dog tackled her and started to lick her to death.

"Awwwwwwwww!" Ruby said as the dog was so cute.

Weiss under normal circumstances would have also been melted at the sight of the dog. But right now she was trying not to make this guy go crazy.

"OKAY SERIOUSLY! NOBODY MOVE! UNTIL I FIGURE OUT WHATS GOING ON!" He said as he fired a shotgun shell into the sky.

"Okay okay!" Weiss said as she made sure Winter wouldn't do anything.

"How did you all appear out of nowhere?! Why are you all cosplaying?! And why did you destroy the my motorhome?!" Jem yelled as everyone looked at each other.

"Well uhm, you see Sir, we're huntresses and huntsman in training, and we were sent here by some kind of dust related acc-"

"Okay first off, this isn't RWBY, come back to the real world where dust, Grimm, And sniper rifles that turn into scythes don't exist!" Jem said as Ruby's mouth dropped.

"How did you know about Crescent rose?" She asked as the man rolled his eyes.

"Literally everyone knows about it, I mean, RWBY was one of the most popular web series for awhile." Okay, now it was everyone's turn to be confused.

"Web series?" Weiss asked.

"Oh don't play dumb with me, if you think your cute cosplay is going to stop me from shooting someone for trespassing, then you're dead wrong!" At this Weiss took offense.

"Hey! This is not cosplay!" She said as Ruby spoke up.

"Yeah! Our clothing is totally practical!" She said as Jem raised an eyebrow.

"You're saying that while you're dressed like a gothic lolita?" Okay, she had no response to that.

"Look, I'm sure you're just a little mad because we destroyed your…..motorhome." Weiss said as the man must not have been thinking straight.

"A little mad?! Well no shit Sherlock!" Wow, this was not going well.

"I assure you! We are who we say we are!" Weiss said as she had to figure out a way to get him to put the shotgun down.

"Oh really, well then prove it!"

"Prove it?"

"Oh I don't know, kill some Grimm or something, I don't know."

At that, they all looked around.

"There are no Grimm around here." Yang said as he rolled his eyes.

"Oh wow, really, what a shocker."

Finally Winter had had enough of this.

"FINE! HERE'S YOUR PROOF!" She said as she slammed her sword down into the ground.

Only for a giant white golem to appear out of a sigil in the ground.

It was designed to look like an Atlesian knight, and needless to say, Jem's reaction was priceless.

Immediately he lowered the shotgun, he didn't drop it. But lets just say his mouth was all the way to the ground as he looked at the giant glowing golem in front of him. There was no way that this could be real. This had to be a dream.

"Okay, I get it, I'm dreaming!" He said as everyone groaned.

"EW! I smell like rotting pumpkin!" Nora said as Team JNPR woke up and realized they were in a compost pile.

"Yeah! This has to be a dream!" He said with a shaky laugh as this didn't happen in real life.

"Uhm, no we're real." Ruby had no idea why he was acting like this.

"Yeah uh huh sure, totally real, because in real life, Winter Schnee would really be on my bed in ripped clothing waiting for me, yeah that's totally realistic!" He said as Winter spoke up.

"I wasn't waiting for you! You ass! I was thrown here against my will!"

"Geez, even in my dreams women don't like me, that kind of hurts." Jem said as he calmed down enough to shoulder his shotgun.

"Okay, well since this is a dream, I guess I don't have to worry anymore, my motorhome will be completely fine when I wake up." He said as Team JNPR crawled out of the compost pile.

"Can somebody get this dog off of me?!" Blake said as nobody seemed to care this giant mutt was on top of her and wouldn't let her get up!

"Oh don't be such a scaredy cat!" Jem giggled as Yang liked that.

"Ha a, good one!" She said as she was enjoying seeing her Partner like this.

"Look, we all got off on the wrong foot, why don't we start over? My name is-" Weiss started but Jem finished.

"Yeah yeah, I know who you all are, Winter Schnee, Weiss Schnee, Ruby Rose, Yang Xiao Long, Blake Belladonna, Pyrrha Nikos, Jaune Arc, Lie Ren, and Nora Valkyrie." At this everyone got creeped out.

"H-How did you know all that?" Weiss as a bit worried.

She could understand if someone knew who she or Pyrrha was, but to know everybody here? That was a bit concerning.

"Well duh, characters from RWBY." He said as a matter of fact.

"You lost me." Weiss said as Winter was still glaring at the man.

The fact he had called her a 'Big tiddy Cosplay girlfriend' would not be forgotten.

"You're joking right? This is gonna be one of those dreams where I have to reveal that you guys are all part of a major web series and then show you it, and watch you all get horrified as you see the future that's in store for you all? Ugh fine." He said as he walked into the ruins of his motorhome.

"Well come on in! Not like this dream is ending anytime soon anyways." He said as he motioned for all of them to come into the smokey wreck.

"I don't like this, this guy looks like trouble." Winter said being suspicious.

"Well as of right now, we don't have any other options!" Weiss said to her sister.

"Man this is lame, I was hoping If I was going to have a RWBY related dream, I would be doing something bad ass, not having to deal with boring stuff like this." RWBY or JNPR didn't like the way he was talking about them here.

"How is this boring?"

"Oh come on, I literally have to show you guys your own show, I don't get to do anything bad ass like fight Grimm, or get a bad ass weapon, I mean shit, based on the fact that I still feel the same as I do in real life, this dream sucks! I get no special powers at all!" He said as Nora scratched the back of her head.

"He's got a point there, it sucks to have a dream when everyone around you has super powers but you're stuck being a normal guy." At this Jem pointed at her.

"Thank you!"

"Will you shut up and just show us this web series!" Winter was not getting patient.

"Ugh, Geez, you were a lot nicer in the show." Jem said as Winter's brow twitched.

"Ah here we go." He pressed play on something.

Only for it to show three girls in what appeared to be girl scout uniforms staring up at a hole in the roof in shock.

"_He can pee in me….anytiiimmmmeee." The one on the right said._

_The one in the middle looked disgusted._

"_TABII SERIOUSLY WHAT THE FUCK?!" _

"What the heck?" Nora said as she saw that.

"Woops, sorry wrong show." He said as he looked through his video selection on his laptop.

"….Was it just me or did those scouts sound like Nora?" Ren asked.

"Ah here we go." He pulled up episode one.

"Here, enjoy, I'm going to go grab a beer." He said as he walked out of the motorhome to go to his parents house.

Little did he know the massive effect this would have on everyone watching.

"WILL SOMEONE PLEASE GET THIS DOG OFF OF ME!"

While also forgetting about one of their other friends.


	7. Surprise Motherfucker

**Alright everyone, sorry its been a bit since I updated this, but its been a busy week. Training is picking up again for the field, as well as preparing for EIB, for those of you who are 11B or 11C vets, you know how stupid it gets with EIB. On top of that, COD modern warfare was just released, so been playing that a lot. **

**Anyways, I've been doing good. Still going to the gym. My family was visiting last weekend. And come November, I'll be paying off my first student loan! So very excited about that. **

**After that, just one more. But I can finally save more money for a new tattoo, and all my other future plans. I'm fucking pumped.**

* * *

Jem didn't know what to think anymore. He was not drinking heavily, but he was a few drinks in before he went back outside. This was one weird dream, and by that he meant it felt like it was real. It was going slow, there wasn't anything weird happening anymore. And unlike in most of his dreams, when h threw a punch or in this case a fake punch, it didn't slow down when he did it. Did anyone else have that problem? When you got into a fight in a dream, but for some reason whenever you threw a punch it slowed down to the point that it wouldn't hurt whoever you were fighting?

But he had to be dreaming! There was no other explanation, otherwise his parents and Grandmother would have run outside as soon as they heard the crashing sound of his motorhome being destroyed! But they stayed asleep! That was not possible!

"Jesus Christ, my life feels like an episode of Rick and Morty right now." He said as he took another swig of beer.

He walked back to his motorhome.

"Hey y'all hows it going?" Only to see that Pyrrha was crying.

"W-What?" She said as she saw the scene of her being turned to ash.

"Oh….bad time…." He went to his bed in the trailer.

"Excuse me?!" Winter was mad at the man for seeming so relaxed about it.

"What?"

"She just saw her own death and you're acting as if its no big deal." Winter said as Jem was confused.

"This is just a dream, and even if It was real, now that she's seen it, she can prevent it." Jem said as simple as that.

"Do you really think its that simple?!" Winter yelled at him.

"Yeah, I mean, now she knows what not to do, you guys could stop everything from happening, I mean shit you even saw the whole detailed plan, you'll be fine. I'm going to bed."

Now at this point, Winter would have lectured him for being insensitive, but then she remembered something, according to the web series they had just been watching, and the fact this man didn't look like anything from Remnant, especially with the symbols he had tattooed on him, he obviously wasn't from Remnant, and since it seemed he was convinced they were from the show they were watching. Winter had one conclusion.

That dust had made a portal and sent them somewhere complelely different.

AND SHE HAD NO IDEA HOW!

The man fell asleep almost instantly as soon as he hit the pillow. Pyrrha had calmed down a little bit, but she was being comforted by Jaune, who…well he had seen the kiss, and now he realized there was something he had been missing out on. And well, it was going to be difficult to have this conversation now, especially since he had just seen his partner die, even if it was just on a tv screen.

"Where are we?" Ruby asked as this was all so confusing.

"I don't know….but I'm scared…." Weiss admitted as this was completely different.

"What are we going to do?! How do we get back?" Yang was not doing so well, she had seen herself lose an arm.

Blake couldn't believe she ran away from them all at the end. But then again, she completley understood why, if what she saw was True, and Adam hurt Yang to get to her, then it was obvious that she ran away because she thought she was protecting her friends. But she could see the hurt in her teammates face. And honestly this was a lot of information to take in.

"Not to mention Ozpin is hiding some ancient secret beneath Beacon." Jaune said as this whole situation stunk.

"Guys….what do we do now? We have the power to change the future right?!" Nora said as she was getting anxious because of the impending doom upon them.

"We would, but we don't know how we got here or how we get back home." Ren mentioned as Pyrrha spoke up.

"W-What about the dust? Can't we just use it again?" She asked in a broken tone.

"No, we don't know if it would take us back, for all we know it could send us into another crazy world, could send us to some alternate space dimension, could send us to some chibi dimension, hell for all we know it could send us to a desert planet. We don't know. And even if we did, the dust bullets didn't land with us, hell they may still be in Remnant for all we know." Ruby mentioned the two big issues they encountered.

"Well what the hell are we going to do?!" Yang yelled her eyes turning red.

"There's nothing we can do….except wait for help." Winter said as everyone turned to her.

"How? Nobody even knows where we are?" Ruby asked as Winter shuffled.

"Except they do, They know we were out on a mission beforehand, so it would look suspicious if we were to disappear without a trace, they'll eventually come across our campsite and try to put the pieces together." Winter said as a matter of fact.

"Except they still wouldn't know what happened to us." Ruby pointed out.

"Wrong again, I had a surveillance drone circling aroud the camp giving us not only a view inside the camp, but in a 360 degree surveillance of the area." At this everyone breathed a sigh of relief.

Except for Ruby.

"Wait, you had a drone surveying the camp the whole time?"

"Yeah so?"

"Then why the hell were we pulling security shifts?!" Ruby was pissed because now it felt like a waste of time.

"Theres room for error in machines." Winter defended herself.

"I was tired! For all you know I could have fallen asleep on watch!" Ruby was not letting this go.

"Hehe, m249 sleep is best sleep." Jem said from his sleep.

"What did he just say?" Nora asked confused.

"Ignore him, he's irrelevant to the situation."

"And what is our situation?"

"How about stranded on an alien planet with no way home and the only person we've met so far is some guy whose pissed that we destroyed his home?" Yang said in a sarcastic tone of voice.

"You're not helping." Winter stated matter of fact.

"Oh really?! How am I supposed to be helpful right now?! After all that we just saw?!" Yang was not a happy camper.

"Look! We have to remain calm and think this through." Winter said as she took a deep breath.

"We all can't deny that we're in a new world, a world where our lives are some other person's form of entertainment, and unforturnately we have no way back home yet, however, there is a silver lining to this, we know exactly what the enemy will do and how to prevent it, we'll be able to get home in time to stop it, the vytal tournament is still weeks away, I imagine we'll be out of here before then, and we can return to our lives." Winter said as Pyrrha thought that sounded nice.

A new chance to be with Jaune and not have to worry about her death? That sounded like a good thing to her. Everyone thought it over, things could be different now. While they weren't scared before because they were ignorant of the future, now they had knowledge of it that was frightening, and they could change it for the better. So things were going to be alright. But there was still one pressing issue currently.

"What do we do about him?" Nora asked as they pointed to the sleeping guy.

"….Well…." Winter wasn't sure.

He thought it was a dream, and they were going to have a difficult time trying to explain this. Plus the fact that the only reason he didn't shoot them was because he assumed that his motorhome being destroyed was a dream.

"Well….Ruby, you're good with machines right?" Yang asked.

"Uh huh."

"We better fix his motorhome before he wakes up, or else he's going to be pissed."

"That will take all night!" Ruby said.

"We got all night!"

"We don't have the materials!"

"I can….acquire some." Winter was certain she could find some sort of replacement materials from a shop.

Granted, acquiring them without anybody knowing was against her moral code.

"Look, all we need to do is repair the structure! I checked the engine, all it really needs is a few parts to be pushed back into place and maybe a shit ton of duct tape! Our big concern is reshaping the metal and repairing the windows, that shouldn't be too hard!" Yang said as Ruby groaned.

"This is gonna suck."

"Hey, at least all of his gizmos and shit in here is still intact! Come on lets get to work!"

"This is gonna suck!"

**The Next Morning**

Jem yawned as his alarm went off.

"_**Carry we! Who die in battle! Over land and sea! Across the rainbow bridge! To Valhalla! Odin's waiting for me!" **_Manowar played as he tried to pick songs that would get him pumped up for a workout in the morning.

That way he would be able to get up no problem. It was a habit he developed in the army, whenever he woke up for PT in the morning, he was always geared up ready to go because of his music selection. He sat up in his bed, he looked up and saw that his motorhome was completely fine, nothing was broken, and everything seemed okay. In fact, everything looked brand new, which was odd because he knew he used older parts and shit in order to save money on everything. Getting out of bed, he prepared his morning routine. He took a quick cold shower to help jolt him awake while the pot of coffee he had put on was brewing. He was in the shower for five minutes, and then got out and brushed his teeth, and shaved only his neck, since he was growing his beard out now, he preferred to keep the neck area shaved in order to have a cleaner look and to help highlight his jawline.

After he finished grooming, he applied his deodarant and cologne and picked out his morning workout clothes. Since he wasn't in the army anymore, he was happy he could pick his own clothes for his morning PT. So he went with a simple tank top with the image of Perseus with the head of medusa on it, as well as a zip up hoddie with Blood and Iron on the back, paying homage to Bathory. He threw on a pair of sweat pants and his shoes and downed a cup of coffee before stretching for his morning run.

He poured himself another cup of coffee and walked outside and let the nice cool autumn air hit him. He breathed in the smell of good coffee, and the smell of dying leaves and reminded himself that this was his favorite time of year.

He looked over at the sunrise and smiled as he realized that last night was just a crazy dream, and he could move on and enjoy his life.

"Well, time to get this run done, before heading in to the gym for work." Jem had a simple routine.

In the mornings he did cardio, and in the afternoon after work, he lifted weights. Even though he hated running while he was in, it was surprisingly a lot more fun when you didn't want to kill yourself each morning before PT.

He did some final strecthes and started his run.

"Wait!" He had his ear buds in, so he didn't see hear the voice calling out to him.

If he had looked back, he would have seen the cosplayers from before exhausted and huddled together for warmth because they had worked on his motorhome all night in hopes that he wouldn't freak out when he saw them again.

But now he had just run off without even looking at them.

"Don't worry, he'll be back." Winter narrowed her eyes.

This man…..something about him seemed familiar. Not in the, 'they had met before' way. But in the way he moved, his movements were confident, he stood up straight, and his build was athletic, and to make it even more obvious, he was up early in the morning to go for a run. Even the way he was holding the shotgun the other day, his trigger discipline was great, and he had his head on a swivel in case anyone else appeared.

Was the man military?

"So now what do we do?"

"I say we make breakfast!" Yang said as her stomach growled.

Everyone turned to see Team JNPR was already cooking in the motorhome.

"Jaune! You can't just start raiding a man's kitchen!" Ruby said as they looked at their sister team.

"We just stayed up all night in order to fix this guys motorhome…we earned a nice breakfast." Jaune said as they looked in the fridge.

"Well…..okay point taken."

"Very well." Winter planned to supervise this.

"I'll make sure we eat a proper breakfast." She was certain she could find a proper nutritious meal.

"uuuhhhh." Jaune was looking in the fridge as Winter walked over.

Only for her eyes to go wide at all the numerous egg cartons, and dozens of pounds of bacon.

"Oh dear Oum…" She said as that was a lot of bacon.

This was the recipe for a heart attack.

"Okay, no bacon…" She said as she looked around the fridge more.

Milk wasn't a bad choice, but the pork sausage was a no, the eggs were good, but the man didn't have any vegetables in here, he didn't have any fruits. It was a lot of meat, a lot of eggs, and a lot of cheese.

"Screw it! I'm hungry!" Nora said as she took a few lbs of bacon out of the fridge.

"Now hold on! You can't seriously expect to eat all of that!" Winter said trying to be health conscious.

"Uhm, look I don't mean to be rude. But one bad meal isn't going to kill us! And we're starving!" Nora said as Winter realized this girl was not in the mood to be lectured about proper diet.

**With Jem**

Jem was currently in his walk as he finished his run. He did about three miles at a nice slow pace. After all, he no longer needed to run a 13 minute two mile, so he was having a blast just running a light pace and enjoying nature as he passed by it. It was perfect. And now, he was about to complete his morning with his favorite part. Breakfast!

Usually his breakfast consisted of three whole eggs, with six egg whites in total, four slices of bacon, a banana, and some coffee. It was a simple breakfast, but it worked for him. It was a good thing he worked out so much, or he was certain his choletosterol would be terrible.

But something was off.

He was walking to his motorhome, and he smelled a familiar scent. He smelled bacon….and eggs, and….was that pancakes?

He looked at the roof of his motorhome where the small opening was for a skylight. And he saw smoke coming out of it, along with that heavenly smell.

"Huh, did mom decide to cook me breakfast while I was out on my run?" He asked himself as he walked up to the door of his motorhome.

He heard voices talking.

He figured it had to be his parents.

"Morning y'all, hows it go-" And Jem froze as he saw something in front of him.

He saw the cosplayers from the night before! But that was impossible! He wasn't asleep anymore! He was awake! This wasn't supposed to be happening! Thinking his mind was playing tricks on him he pinched himself, only to feel pain. His eyes went even wider as he realized he wasn't dreaming, because you don't feel pain in a dream.

"Good morning Mister!" The one dressed as Ruby Rose said as Jem looked over everyone.

"W-W-" He was so confused.

"Good morning Sir, I believe we have a lot to talk about." Winter said as she tried to be diplomatic.

Jem froze.

He waited.

He waited.

He waited.

"MA! PA! GET OUR GUNS!"


	8. New Roommates

**Well guys, here we go, so far I'm getting a lot of positive feedback on this because people like how it has a more chill atmosphere, and thats what I'm going for. Granted there will be crazy moments. Like this chapter. After all, this is still Out of Place, so I had to do something to let people know its still me.**

**Anyways, this chapter was a bit weird to write. Because it didn't feel right including a crazy moment in the story because of the more chill atmosphere i got going on now, but I'm sure once I get further along, I'll be able to make it flow better.**

**Anyways, another thing. For those of you private messaging me asking me for my facebook or instagram. Look guys I appreciate the fact you want to get in touch with me, but those are private accounts. And I don't give them out on here unless I get to know you first.**

**And also for some people asking me about what the armys like and if they should join, honestly go talk to a recruiter. Only advice I can give you is don't be a pussy when it comes to basic.**

* * *

"Well that didn't go as planned." Weiss said as they were now hiding behind a giant block of concrete while both the tattooed guy from before and three other people were now pointing rifles at them.

Two of them were middle aged, and one of them was an elderly woman wearing a kitchen apron brandishing an M1 Garand. While the tattooed guy as sporting an AR 15, and the middle aged couple stuck with their mosin nagants. Needless to say, this was not going well.

"Can't we talk about this?!" Yang would usually use her semblance, but everyone was worried that might only make things worse.

"Come out where we can see you!" Jem said as his family nodded.

"Put the guns down!" Winter said as she was trying to avoid a confrontation.

"I'll flank them from the side, you guys stay here." Jem said as he went off into the woodline.

In reality, his family had no idea what the hell was going on, but they heard 'get the guns' and immediately came out armed. Plus the fact that there were nine unknown people on their property meant time to go boogaloo on their asses. For all they know, it could be ATF here because they got a tip about the Howitzer they had that was off the books.

"Why are we scared? We're trained hunttresses! They're just some civilians." Yang said as all of a sudden something got launched over the concrete block they were hiding behind.

It ws a bucket full of some weird substance that they didn't recognize.

"Wait a second…" Winter said as she took a good look at it.

"THAT'S TANNERITE!" She yelled as she recogized the substance.

"DAMN STRAIGHT!" Jem said as he took aim from the woodline.

"OH SHIT!" Blake said as everyone started to run.

Jem let one round go, and it hit the bucket, causing a decent sized explosion, which while it did hurt the assembled group of huntsman and hunttresses, their aura was enough to keep them safe.

"Oof….." Ruby said as she faceplanted in the ground.

"Just some civilians Yang?" Blake said as the girl was starting to regret it now.

"FREEZE!" The Elderly woman said as she pointed her rifle at Winter's face.

"Wait a minute…." She said as she noticed everyone was unharmed.

"Jem! It didn't work!"

"What do you mean it didn't work! They were like two feet away from it!"

"It s a miracle!"

"I don't believe it!"

Jem walkd up and noticed that sure enough, everyone was unharmed, aside from a few dusty clothes, nobody had any wounds despite the fact they just took a tannerite bucket at close range.

"Well shit, what a waste of tannerite…" Jem said as Winter glared at him.

"Are you crazy?! You could have hurt us!"

"You're trespassing!"

"We made you breakfast!"

"YOU'RE TRESPASSING!"

"…..Look, please just give us a chance to explain ourselves." Weiss said trying to be diplomatic.

"You have ten seconds."

"That's a little."

"9."

"Okay! We told you last night! We're huntresses and huntsman from the world of-"

"Bullshit, 5."

"Winter! Prove it!"

And with that Winter slammed a hand down in the ground.

Only to summon a Grimm Griffon construct.

Which had one of two effects.

First one was the family of four nearly dropping their weapons in Awe at the sight in front of them.

And the second one was shooting the shit out of it.

"BOOGALOO TIME BITCHES!" Jem shotued as the construct was soon shot to death.

The family froze for a bit while they decided what to do next.

"So….this is real….." Jem said as he pinched himself again to make sure this wasn't a dream.

"Yes." Winter said.

"You're really here." He said as this was a bit much to take in.

"Yes."

At this, the family had no idea what was going on. On one hand, they just saw a woman summon some weird ass creature from out of nowhere. The nine people were dressed up as cosplayers, but Jem now knew they weren't cosplayers at all. The rest of his family were just as confused. And they prided themselves on being prepared, but this was something new.

They had a plan for when the alphabet boys came.

They had a plan for when Beto came.

They had a plan for home invaders.

A plan for lawyers.

A plan for traveling salesmen.

But this, this was not something they ever thought they would need a plan for. Nine anime characters popping up out of nowhere with no particular explanation, and they couldn't be harmed by their normal weapons because of Aura. Needless to say, they had no idea how to handle this.

"Should we just use more bullets?" Pa suggested.

"NO!" Everyone else said.

"Look, now that we know something is obviously fucked up, Maaayyybbbe we should try to be more diplomatic." Jem suggested.

Team RWBY, JNPR, and Winter all sighed in relief.

"And if that doesn't work?" Pa asked.

"Then we use a fuck ton of bullets."

And the relief was gone.

While they had aura to protect them, and it would negate most attacks, Aura did have a limit. And if they had as much tannerite and bullets as Winter thought, they might have a problem. Plus it also didn't help they were all tired form last night trying to fix this guys motorhome.

"Alright Miss Schnee." Jem said suspiciously as he walked up to Winter.

"Explain this to me as if I'm an idiot."

"Okay I'm there."

CH CHUNK

"What was that?"

"…..I said, I'll happily tell you!"

**About 100 chapters worth of exposition later**

"So….you were experimenting with a new dust…"

"Yes."

"Which Weiss said had not been properly tested yet."

"Yes."

"But you decided then was as good of a time as any to test it."

"That's correct."

"Which then opened up a wormhole causing you to crash into my motorhome."

"Affimative."

"Which you fixed after I went to bed."

"Yes it took all night." Winter glared at him a bit for that.

"And now you're here."

"And now I'm here."

"….This honestly makes no sense."

"In what regards?"

"Everything! You mean to tell me dust which is used as an energy propellant or some shit like that someone opened up a wormhole when according to roosterteeth that shouldn't be possible. Not to mention somehow it opens up a portal to a world where your world is completely fictional, and just so happens to land on my motorhome, this all seems way too far fetched to be a thing!" Jem said as his family was in agreement.

"And yet here we are, right in front of you." Winter said as they were all now sititng around a table trying to figure out what to do.

"Well, yeah, we just saw you summon a fucking griffon, so obviously you are who you say you are." Everyone breathed out a sigh of relief.

"But what the hell are you going to do now? Obviously you have to get back." At this the assembled group grew worried.

"I already told my party that I am certain they have found out what happened already and are working on a way to get us back now." Winter said as Jem rubbed his head.

"That sounds like wishful thinking." Jem said as Winter rolled her eyes at him.

"Is it really that unbelieavble considering everything else that has happened."

"Okay good point….so what happens now."

"Well about that….we need a place to stay." Weiss said as Winter looked back at her sister.

"Weiss…"

"What? Its true! We got nowhere else to go!"

"Well…I suppose we could help with that." Ma and Pa said.

"Theres some room in our other sons and daughters old room." Ma said.

"Wait a minute! You guys turned my room into a storage room, but kept their rooms the same!"

"Well to be honest, we expected them to move back in sooner than you."

"…..I don't know if that was a compliment or an insult."

"I suppose those two can share your sister's old room." She pointed to Ren and Nora.

"And those two can share your brothers old room." She pointed to Jaune and Pyrrha who blushed now that they knew just what they were in the future.

"Those two in the living room." Yang and Ruby high fived even though they would be getting a pull out bed.

"Those two get the basement." Weiss and Blake kind of groaned.

"And me?"

"Well…..we have enough room for eight more…..but not you." Grandmama said as Winter raised an eyebrow.

"So where will I stay?"

"Well, my son has a spare bed in his motorhom-"

"NO!" Both Winter and Jem yelled out.

"Jem, the young lady needs a place to stay…" Grandmama said.

"She tried to kill me when she first got here!" Jem yelled in his defense.

"He called me a 'Big tiddy cosplay girlfriend!'" Winter yelled in her defense.

"Oh I'm sorry I didn't choose my words correctly after seeing my motorhome get destroyed and a beautiful woman in torn up clothes on my bed!" If Winter wasn't angry she would have taken the beautiful compliment, but now she was mad.

"You still could have used some tact!"

"Screw that! You destroyed my motorhome!"

"Well we fixed it for you!"

"BECAUSE YOU BROKE IT IN THE FIRST PLACE!"

"IT WASN'T MY FAULT!"

"Oh I'm sorry, whose idea was it to test out a new dust which ended up leading to here!"

"So its settled then! Winter will be staying in the spare bed in Jem's motorhome!"

"What?! I didn't agree to this!"

"Jem, its either that, or we throw someone out on the streets."

"…Goddam it."


	9. Fire and Ice

**Whats up Guys, back again with another chapter. So I saw the volume 7 premiere, and I think it was a good way to start the volume, that being said, don't worry I won't post any spoilers. With that out of the way. I just got back from the gym, ordered some new gear from Norse Fitness, cooked up some chicken breasts and rice. And now finishing off this chapter, so overall its a good day.**

* * *

"Ugh, it smells in here." Winter said as she was spraying febreeze all over.

"You literally JUST got in here!" Jem said as he had no idea what she was complaining about.

"It smells like Coffee in here!"

"How is that a bad thing?"

"Most of us don't prefer to smell like coffee!"

"….Commie…" Jem said under his breath.

After they had settled the housing arrangements for the displaced Hunttresses. Winter had immediately walked out with Jem to the motorhome. Needless to say, neither one of them was pleased. While Jem would usually be excited about a hot woman living with him, this was different. This woman probably hated his guts. And the fact that based on her attitude, she was obviously some sort of Officer in the Atlas military, it conflicted with his enlisted attitude. Plus, his motorhome wasn't even dirty! He may have been an enlisted man, but he was tidy above all things! And yet she was treating it as if he was a hoarder!

"Do some laundry!" She said as she tossed his Norse Fitness tops into a pile.

"Those were already washed!" He said as he knew for a fact he just did those.

"And get some variety in this fridge!" Winter said as all she saw was Bacon, eggs, sausage, milk, some beer, and for some reason a bottle of whiskey.

"You can't just dictate things! This is my motorhome!"

"And while I am grateful for the place to stay, I will not be living in Squalor." She said as she was already cleaning.

"You call this being dirty?" Jem didn't even want to know what she considered clean.

Well, he was already starting to dislike this. But then again, she was actually cleaning some of the stuff, so he guess he couldn't complain too much. Except he was certain she must have some form of OCD considering how she seemed to be cleaning and fixing things a certain way. Anyways, he just decided to say fuck it, and he took his workout clothes into his parents house so he could do a load of laundry, if just to get her off his back.

"How's it going so far Son?" His father asked him as Jem groaned.

"She's been in my trailer for about five minutes, and she's lecturing me on it being dirty."

"Really? But you keep that place clean?"

"My point exactly! But she's treating it like I live in a crack den!" It was irritating.

You know, in all of his years writing fanfiction, and doing self inserts and pairing himself up with a character like all the other forever alone virgins, he thought things would be great. But now he practically was living a self insert fanfiction and it fucking sucked. Then again, he figured Winter could be like this, so its not like it was far fetched. But damn it was annoying as fuck.

Most guys would be happy as hell because they assumed they would get a big tiddy anime girl for a wife. But nope, he got stuck with an Ice Queen roommate who was forcing him to uphold his trailer to impossible levels of cleanliness. Talk about getting the short end of the stick. Nothing good was going to come of this, he was sure of it.

Meanwhile, he looked in the living room to see that Yang and Ruby were enjoying some shows on Netflix.

"This is awesome!" Ruby said as she was watching Gundam with Yang, and she couldn't help but gush over the Mechs.

"This world ain't so bad after all!" Yang said as they had found a lot of fun shows on Netflix.

They had started out by watching Strongland, but then Ruby found the cartoon category, and now they were busy watching that. Granted there were some they realized were not oriented for kids, for example when they came across Archer, which they didn't realize was for adults because it was animated. But they soon learned that adult shows could be animated as well when they watched the first episode.

"Well, at least they're having fun." He said as he saw his mom walk into the living room.

"Cookies?" She asked Ruby as both Yang and Ruby smiled and happily accepted the cookies.

"…..Mom, why are you baking cookies?"

"Ohhh, they just looked so cute watching cartoons, I couldn't help it!" His mother said as he rolled his eyes.

"Okay, I get that, wheres Weiss and Blake?"

"Oh they're down in the basement, watching some disney movies." At this he raised an eyebrow again.

"Is almost everyone staying in here watching cartoons of some kind?" He asked as his mother nodded.

"Pretty much, we asked them to help with chores and work around the house."

"And?"

"Ruby finished up half of them by herself using her speed, Yang moved most of the furniture by herself, Weiss helped decorate, and most of….Team JNPR? They helped with the cleaning, the only one we had trouble with was Blake."

"Why is that?"

"We asked her to feed Zeus."

"And?"

"And he loves his new cat friend."

"And how did she take that?"

"She's mad because he won't leave her alone."

"Hehe."

"Weiss doesn't mind, she's been petting Zeus all day."

Okay that was kind of adorable.

"Oh well, I got to get to work, I'll be back later on."

"Of course, still working with the girly man client?"

"You mean Alex? Yeah, but at least I got him to stop wearing that stupid 'Future is female' shirt." Jem said as he got ready to go to the gym.

"I don't get why you're working with him?"

"Hey, he may not be the kind of guy I would hang out with on a daily basis, but he's changing for the better, and I love to see that stuff. Anyone whose willing to put in the work at the gym to change their health I can respect, that being said, I'm also hoping he stops acting like a girl, because its getting awkward hearing him moan in pain at the gym, but it sounds like he's having sex." Jem cringed the last time he was helping with squats.

Do you know how awkward it is to be spotting a man doing squats, but everytime he finishes a rep he lets out a moan like Mia Khalifa? It was awkward as shit.

"Alright, well, have fun."

"Will try."

**At the gym**

"This sucks…." Jem said as he was not liking this.

First Alex kept making sexual noises throughout the workout again. So he had to put duct tape over his mouth to stop it. And then after he had helped him finish his workout, one of the cougars had asked for his help in their workout. But his boss made sure to tell him he couldn't help them with anything heavy, and he had to help them with stretching, which in this case, was demeaning. Because he hated being an assistant to a cougar yoga class. Again, not even the hot cougars, but the ones who had severly let themselves go.

Seriously, the amount of people who tried to get grabby with him was freaking him out. And if he wasn't in need of the money so bad, he would honestly have quit already. Seriously, he was certain he could file charges against some of them. Because it was getting creepy. Then again, his boss wouldn't allow it, so he decided to say fuck it and charlie mike.

"Jem, the ladies from the spin class say the sauna is broken." His boss said as Jem sighed.

"On it…" He knew this game.

The women from the spin class were again trying to hit on him, they were the snorlax women he mentioned before. And chances are they wanted him to come to the sauna so they could show themselves off, which honestly was not appealing to him, and he didn't want to go. But he remembered how much he needed the money.

"I hate this…" He said to himself as he walked into the steam room to fix one of the vents.

"Oooh ladies! Look who it is!" One of the big ones said as they were all in towels.

"_I swear to god, I should just pretend I'm gay, it would probably get this to stop." _Jem thought to himself as he looked at the vents.

"Evening ladies." He said as he was focusing on the vent.

"Aren't you hot in that outfit?" One of them said as Jem was in black sweat pants and a tanktop.

"Nope, completely fine." He said as he just wanted to get the hell out of there before they got all grabby.

Seriously, he was certain he did something to piss the gods off at one point. Because it seemed like the only women who were interested in either fat, ugly, or old. He could deal with the old if they were a silver fox, but instead of that, he got these wannabe hoes. The world wasn't fair. Hell he would take a GMILF over this torture.

He looked over to see one of them was eating a candy bar while in the sauna. Okay first off, not cool eating that in the gym, secondly, why the fuck would you eat that in a sauna, its gonna melt and get everywhere, and thirdly, did these women really need the candy?

But again he couldn't yell something like 'Stop being fat.' Because he needed the job. So again, he had to deal with it. Again, he had no problem with those actively trying to change, but these ladies he had seen go to Mcdonalds to get three big macs right after their workout. So they were not his group of people.

"You're wearing a hoodie and sweatpants, that's got to be boiling." In reality, they were just trying to get him to strip.

"Not really." He said as he found the source of the problem.

"The sauna isn't broken, one of the vents for steam was clogged with a towel." He said as he pulled it out and got the fuck out of there.

"Wait! Stay for a bit!" One of them giggled.

"Can't, got to go!"

He wondered if everyone back at the house was having a better time.

_**AT THE HOUSE**_

"THIS IS GREAT!" Ruby said as she had never been so comfortable.

She hadn't had cookies, cartoons and time to just act like she was a kid again in awhile. Everyone here was having a great time, which was weird considering how they pretty much saw the fall of beacon and the whole world when they saw Jem's computer. They watched up to Volume 7's premiere. They couldn't belive they had gotten so much information about the future. Everyone had calmed down though since Pyrrha's death. And she was handling it much better, although right now, she and Jaune were being a bit awkward when trying to comfort each other. Because they HAD to come clean with their feelings now, and needless to say it was starting to feel rushed because neither one of them was ready to admit it yet.

Weiss was enjoying learning about the classical music scene of this world. To think that there was a whole new world of music she never knew about, it was absolutely amazing. Blake however had mixed feelings about this world. She had been reading and watching history documentaries, and she was disappointed and horrified to learn that this world has as much of a bloody history as theirs. Granted the thing that shocked her was that there were no faunus in this world.

Course, she discovered something that scared the fuck out of her. And needless to says he was staying away from the internet for a long time.

In her quest to see if there was anything similar to the faunus on Earth, she had discovered something unholy and disgusting.

Furries….

At first she thought it was okay, she saw it was just a bunch of people just cosplaying as anthro animals, some wore fake ears and tails, which while on Remnant it would be racist, it was harmless here…..until she got to the yiffers.

Needless to say, she knew better than to click on a website called xnxx when searching for more info on furries.

She took a long shower while holding her legs in horror while rocking back and forth at the horrors she had witnessed.

"What the fuck is wrong with this world?" She would often think to herself when seeing that furry shit.

Shit like that made her almost understand the SDC treatment of faunus. But she soon snapped out of it, when she realized that this had nothing to do with it, and she was just feeling confused because she had been that freaked out.

Furry porn was not something you wanted to look at unless you were into that sort of thing.

Needless to say, Blake was not one of those weirdos.

Ren meanwhile had been enjoying himself. He woke up this morning with a nice cup of tea and watched the sunrise, and he was busy reading some of the books that Jem had in the house. Ranging from philosophy, mythology, history, fiction, non fiction, and meditation. Needless to say, he was feeling very at peace in this world.

Nora in the meanwhile was watching cartoons with RWBY.

And she had grown quite fond of watching a show with some thunder god who wielded a hammer! It reminded her so much of her!

Winter however…well she was not having as good of a time as everyone else. Mostly because she was seeing everything as work, and she was not satisfied with the quarters she was forced to stay in. She had been cleaning the motorhome all day because Jem was at work, and she had finally gotten up to some liveable standards.

Granted, she did have to throw his Guinness out to make room for healthy drinks in the fridge. But she was certain that wasn't a big deal.

"You got to be fucking kidding me?!" Jem yelled as Winter was busy reading her book.

After that shitty day at work, all he wanted was a cold glass of Guinness. And Winter had thrown them out.

"Excuse me?" She said as she looked up from her book.

"Where is my beer?!"

"I threw it out."

"Why?!"

"To make room for the tomato juice."

"This is my home!"

"And while I understand that, I hardly see the reason to poison your body with that drink."

At this Jem glared at her.

"I'm getting my beer back." he said as he went to the trash can and picked it out.

"Its warm by now." She said as Jem looked her dead in the eyes.

And he cracked it open, poured it into a glass, let it turn black. And then chugged the whole thing down.

"...That is disgusting..." She said as she saw him drink a warm beer from the trash.

"I'm putting my beer back in the fridge."

"I don't think so!"

Needless to say, Team RWBY and JNPR could hear them arguing from the house.

"Why did we put her with Jem again? They don't seem to get along too well." Pa asked Ma as he was starting to get confused.

"It will be good for him and her."

"In what way?"

"Simple, she's high class and has a stick up her ass, he's middle class and is from the backwoods, I think they could learn a lot from each other."

"Darling, you realize this isn't a romance novel right?"

"Let me have my fun!" Ma said as she had a good feeling about this.

Even if Jem was currently mocking Winter by drinking another guinness in front of her while wearing an American flag bandana.


	10. Bacon

**Alright guys, so my day has been pretty good, thats why I was able to get this chapter out pretty fast. Right now just enjoying my weekend off. On tuesday I go in for my eye exam so I can finally get new glasses. And to top it all off, I get a four day weekend this week because of Veterans day, so overall I'm in a great mood.**

* * *

It was the end of the night. And Jem and Winter were sitting across from each other in different chairs. One of the things he had replaced was he had some of the older chairs in the living room area of his motorhome replaced with some nice lazy boys. So he was much more comfortable, and he could watch his tv at a better angle than with the shitty ones that came with the motorhome. Course, right now he was just enjoying a nice quiet evening reading Dust and Ruin while sipping on his coffee. Some would think he was crazy for drinking coffee this late at night, but he added a bit of baileys irish cream to counteract the caffeine, so in reality, this was his nightime coffee. Winter was in the chair across from him reading her book in silence, he took a quick peek over his book to see that she was reading 20,000 leagues under the sea. Okay Jem couldn't fault her for that, that was a good book.

However, the fact that his motorhome now smelled like lavender and honey instead of coffee and bacon bothered the shit out of him.

"Was it really necessary to shampoo the carpet in here? It's a motorhome not a mansion." Jem said as he finally voiced his displeasure at her taking things a bit too far.

"I told you I would not live in squalor."

"There was nothing wrong with this, but you decided to go all Mr. Clean on it." He said as he pointed out how everything looked pristine.

"Are you seriously complaining about it being clean?"

"No, I'm complaining about the fact that you treated it like it was a plague hospital when there was nothing wrong with it before." He said as that was fairly reasonable.

"If I am to live here, I will uphold a certain standard." Oh god, it was like being under his old Platoon leader again.

" You started burning incense, I don't think that's a normal standard even for rich people." Jem pointed out.

"I am sure you of all people can understand holding your men to a certain standard." She said as he raised a brow.

"Huh?" He was confused now.

"Oh don't play stupid, I know you're former military."

"How could you know that?"

"You left your phone unlocked and on your instagram page."

"What the fuck?! That is a total breach of privacy!"

"If I am to stay in this world, it was necessary for me to gather intel."

"You literally went through my phone! That is so rude!"

"If you were in my shoes, you would do the same, besides, all I saw were pictures of you flexing your muscles and memes, hardly anything noteworthy."

CRACK!

Ouch, Jem felt that arrow go through his heart.

"The point is _Specialist, _you obviously didn't earn your rank by being lazy." Wait.

"…..How high of a rank do you think I am?" He asked her as she rolled her eyes.

"Do you think I'm stupid? Specialist is a high rank, only giving to those worthy of leadership." She said as Jem realized where she was going with this.

He forgot, in the show Specialist was a much higher rank in the Atlas Military, in fact, he was certain it was an officer rank considering Winter's attitude. Which meant, she thought he was an officer.

"Uh yeah, I'm guessing despite the fact you looked at my instagram and saw some photos from my time in the army you didn't bother to research how rank structure works here did you?" He asked as she scoffed.

"How different could it possibly be?"

"Well for one, Specialist is a junior enlisted rank." And now it was Winter's turn to look shocked.

Jem would be lying if he said he didn't get some sick satisfaction out of watching her face go all confused and horrified. And he could see why, after all, based on her reaction, she had just been told she got demoted from the equivalent of a Captain to that of a private. Oh how he loved to see her face suddenly realized she made herself look like an idiot.

"Yep welcome to the enlisted ranks now." He said as she didn't know how to take it.

"Shut up." She said as she went back to her book.

"Oh come on, I'm just joking, but in all reality, you shouldn't assume stuff." He was somehow telling her to chill out but also insulting her at the same time.

"I suppose that would explain the other photos I saw on your instagram…" In all reality, Jem couldn't believe she was using his instagram for information.

"Look, I post a lot of stuff on there, if you really want to know more about me or this world, why not ask me instead of creeping around my social media profiles?" He asked as she got a mean look on her face.

"Excuse me, did you just call me creepy?"

"You just admitted to stalking my insta….come on don't try to act like the victim here." He said as she grumbled.

"Fine." At this Jem couldn't believe it.

Did he just win an argument with a woman? Did he win? Hey he did! It was possible! All it took was arguing with a fictional character!

"I just find it funny how-"

"Oh goddamit."

**The next morning**

Jem was pissed off. After Winter had finished asking him question about their world, specifically questions on the military and the governments of the world, all he wanted to do was sleep. Winter was also not in the best of moods. Because when she tried asking him about the government of the world, he only said the same shit over an over again.

"_Taxation is Theft." _And then he wouldn't talk more about the government, apparently he wasn't a fan.

When she asked him about his military experience, she soon learned that the enlisted men had a very, VERY different life than she expected. At first she was confused as to whether she was learning about his time in the military, or if she was listening to an excerpt from a gay pride activisit. Because there was a lot of homoeroticism in his stories about his time in the field.

But he would always say '_Its not gay if its cold as fuck out.' _

And if that wasn't enough, she learned about the horrible realities that were 'Barracks parties' and 'Blue Falcons'

Needless to say, she prayed that the enlisted men of the Atlesian forces weren't nearly as messed up as this countries army.

But Jem only laughed and said all enlisted men think alike. No matter where they are, or what they do.

Anyways back to the morning. Why was Jem pissed off?

Well you see, Jem had a custom made queen size bed in the master bedroom portion of the motorhome, and he absolutely loved it. But last night when he got ready to go to bed. He saw that Winter was already in his bed in her nightgown.

He tried to tell her that her bed was on the other side of the rv, but she said it was too small, and that she would take his. Knowing that he wasn't going to win that argument, he went to the bed she was supposed to take. While she had the best night of sleep in her life.

So Jem woke up, he prepared his coffee, while making sure that the whole place smelled like Black Rifle Coffee, just so he could get back at Winter a bit. And then he went on his morning run.

Winter on the other hand had woken up in a great mood. She had a pleasant dream. The bed she was in was comfortable. And she woke up with the perfect amount of sleep. And then, she smelled the smell of coffee and something cooking. It wasn't the food cooking that bothered her, it was the fact that again the whole place smelled like coffee.

Jem had finished his run and had started making his breakfast. Which consisted of a few slices of bacon, eggs, and some turkey sausage links. And, against his better judgement, he decided to cook a little more for Winter as well, not because he liked her or anything, but because he was certain that this way she wouldn't turn down a meal and he wouldn't have to deal with her cooking up some super healthy stuff that might not be as tasty. I mean come on, he ate healthy, but she had a whole new definition of health food.

"Ugh, why do you have to be so obsessed with cof-" She came out In her nightgown only to realize she wasn't dressed to be seen, and that there were two plates of food.

"First off, I'm surprised I'm awake before you, and secondly, I made breakfast, theres a plate for you too." He said pointing to her plate of eggs, bacon, some sausages, and a pancake.

"Oh…uhm…." Winter saw the plate, and decided not to be rude.

But she went and changed into something a bit more modest in terms of being seen.

Jem's mother had picked out some clothes for her at the store. Mostly because as everyone had learned, their clothes were not suitable for this place. Not just because it was starting to get cold, but als because as Jem had been so quick to point out, they looked like cosplayers, and that was not a good thing. Not because cosplayers were bad people, but because nobody dressed like that on a daily basis unless you were a weeaboo who thought Japan was exactly what it was like in anime and didn't know better.

So Winter came back in a pair of jeans, a t shirt and a hoodie to help with the chilly breeze in the air.

"Isn't that one of my hoodies?" He asked as he knew for a fact that was one of his.

"I didn't have any, so I borrowed it." She said as Jem looked down.

"I'm never going to get that back…." He was calling it now.

"…." Winter poked at her bacon with a fork.

"Whats the matter? You like it crispier." He said as he ate some eggs.

"Well its just…..I've never had bacon."

SLAM

Suddenly she saw that Jem had slammed his coffee cup down and looked at her in plain shock. It was almost like you had told a six year old that Santa wasn't real.

"What?"

"How is that possible?" He asked her.

"Well, my father was not one for food like-"

"You're in the military…"

"Atlas only serves the finest high performance foods for their soldiers in order to maximiz-" With that Jem hushed her.

"Try it."

"Excus-"

"Try it now, you won't regret it." Jem actually had a smile on his face.

Winter not seeing what the big deal was. Picked up piece with her fork and bit into it.

Jem saw her eyes go wide, and she froze.

"Well?" He said waiting for her reaction.

**In the house**

"Breakfast time!" Mom said as Team RWBY and JNPR were seated around the table eating pancakes.

Ruby was loving it here, it was almost like being back at home and enjoying life before signal academy! Pyrrha was opening up a bit more and was starting to relax a bit over the whole 'she was going to die' thing. But luckily with help from Jaune and her team, as well as reassurance that they could change the future, as well as some time to adjust and relax, she was certain that she was going to be alright.

Plus, all the good food that Jem's mother and grandmother were cooking was a great help.

Grandmama in particular absolutely loved Nora because no matter how much she cooked, Nora could handle all of it. And for someone who grew up in an Italian household, it made her happy that someone could finally eat all of the food she cooked without getting too full.

Meanwhile, she saw Jem run into the house.

"Morning honey, whats-" She saw Jem reaching into the fridge to get all the packs of bacon.

"She's demanding more!" Jem said as he had a mixture of fear and excitement on his face.

He sped out of the house as everyone was wondering what the hell was going on.

"Huh, I think they're making progress."


	11. Ice Empress Down

**So I decided to take a break in between writing chapters, to give myself more time to relax. That and I'm trying to keep it so the story doesn't get too rushed too quickly. I mean the benefit here with this one is Winter and Jem's relationship will develop more over say 50 chapters versus the previous Out of Place which they only met about 15 to 18 chapters in, and then had less time to develop. but this time I can take it a bit more slowly and work with it. **

**That being said, my priorities right no do not include this story. Despite the fact I'm enjoying writing for it again. **

* * *

"I warned you not to eat too much…." Jem said as Winter was holding her stomach.

Needless to say after she had that first bite of bacon. She had fallen in love, she couldn't believe something this tasty was kept from her all her life. Sadly Jem didn't have much bacon left in his fridge due to the fact he went through a lot of bacon and hadn't gone to the store yet to pick up more. Luckily however, there was still a steady bacon supply in the house. Which was why he ran inside to get some. He cooked them up really quick, and needless to say, he had no idea Winter could be so happy. While she did have some control, for example, she waited until the bacon was cooked to the standard she preferred, but she also let it dry off a bit and let the grease either soak into the napkin wrapped plate it was on, or was absorbed back into the meat. Either way, she was absolutely loving bacon. She had finished her eggs, her pancake and her sausage, but the bacon was what she couldn't get enough of. But Jem had warned her not to eat too much of the delicious treat.

Sadly she had not listened, and she was currently curled up in a ball holding her stomach as all the grease was now taking its toll on her stomach. What did you expect, she had never eaten bacon in her life, nor had she ever eaten any grease filled food, so needless to say, her body was not used to unhealthy snacks. So needless to say, imagine Winter's body as Tesla, looks good, runs on clean energy, and high maintence. But add bacon, and it was like adding Diesel fuel to a tesla, it just doesn't work.

"It was so good….." Winter said as she didn't have the energy to put on her ice queen persona.

"Oh trust me I know, but truth is, as good as it is, you got to know your limitations, too much of a good thing can be a bad thing you know." He said as Winter was feeling green.

"You didn't stop me…." She accused him.

"Well to be honest, I wasn't expecting you to go through four pounds of bacon." He said as he had trouble getting through two pounds of bacon by himself.

"I…I need to go…." She wanted to get up but she was having trouble moving.

"What do you mean you need to go?" He asked as she had nothing to do.

"I need to _GO." _She said as Jem suddenly realized something.

"Oh…OH…." He said as he looked around.

"You can't do it in here…." He said as she glared.

"What?! Why?" She said as she continued to hold her stomach.

"Well, it's a general rule, I mean, number 1 is okay, but number 2s are a no go in here…" He said as that was a standard rule for RVS.

"I'm sorry what are you talking about?" She had never heard that term.

"Uhhh, you know what, I'll tell you later, lets just go into the house."

"I….I can't really walk….." She said as she was having trouble moving.

Jem sighed and knew one thing was going to happen.

"HEY WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" Winter said as he began to pick her up.

"Just shut up and let it happen." He said as he picked her up bridal style.

"Stop! Put me down!" She said as she was getting an embarassing blush.

"Hey! You said you needed to go, and you can't walk, and I'll be damned if…..if an accident happens in my motorhome!" He said as she glared at her.

"How dare you! I would neve-" Her stomach made a weird gurgling noise as she held it in pain.

"You wanna try that again?" He asked.

"….Just go…." She said as he nodded.

"Please hold it in…..this is my favorite shirt."

SMACK

"AHHH!"

**Inside the house**

"No way!" Yang said as she was looking outside the window.

"I know! Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is a genius!" Weiss said as she was listening to more classical music.

"No! I mean Jem is carrying your sister bridal style!"

"WHAT?!" Weiss threw her headphones off as she ran to the window.

Sure enough she saw that Jem was currently carrying her older sister bridal style away from the motorhome.

"OH that son of a-' What was he doing got her?

"Wait, whys she making that face?"

"She's being carried by an idiot!"

"How do you know he's an idiot?"

"You do realize we saw him drinking and tap dancing last night to piss off Winter right?"

"Okay fair enough." Yang said as Blake was again trying to get Zeus off of her.

"Go away!" Blake said as the dog was bothering her with his love and affection.

"Sorry, Ol Zeus here loves cats!" It was true.

Unlike some dogs who didn't get along with cats, Zeus absolutely loved them and wanted to smother them with his love. Which was not working out well in Blake's favor. Because she was two of the things Zeus loved most in this world, people and kitty cats. So Blake never had a chance.

Jem kicked in the door and ran Winter to a certain room.

He walked back into the kitchen to see Weiss looking pissed.

"What was that?" She asked as Jem scratched his head.

"I'm pretty sure you don't want to know." He siad as she glared.

"Well, did you know your sister has never had bacon?"

And all of a sudden Weiss was more confused than angry.

"Well yes, its not that surprising considering how our father never liked us trying to eat greasy food." Weiss didn't see the issue.

"First off your father is a dick, and well, lets just say she ate too much, and now all that grease is making a comeback." Weiss was confused as to what she meant.

"I'm afraid I don't follow."

"Uhm….imagine she was a prius….but now shes a supercar."

"A what and a what?"

"She has the shits! Okay?"

"…Ew! Ew! Ew! Ew!" Weiss said walking away.

"Hey I tried to say it politely!"

Jem didn't know what her problem was. This was what happened when you ate too much greasy food. Especially when you weren't used to it. And considering how Winter had been only eating healthy food for what he assumed was most of her life, she might as well have drank about a gallon of super laxative.

"Hey, uhm.." He knocked on the door.

"You doing okay in there?" He asked as he could have sworn he heard crying.

SHLUNK!

Only to see the tip of her sword poke through the door right in front of where his nose was.

"….Okay I can take a hint." He said as he noped the fuck out of there.

He got the feeling that Winter was not going to be coming out of there for awhile. And when she did, she would not be in the best of moods. Sadly, while he had a hangover cure, he did not have a diarrhea cure. So she was not going to be happy.

Jem walked into the living room where Yang and Ruby were currently watching a documentary on the viking sword Ulfberht. Yang didn't want to watch it, but Ruby being the weapons geek she is wanted to see how different the blacksmithing of this world was to her world. Yang meanwhile was trying to stay awake, but there wasn't much you could do when most of the documentary was either history or a guy working a forge.

"So, we heard you poisoning Weiss's sister?" Yang said as Jem laughed.

"Hey, I didn't do anything, I simply made her bacon, and her stomach couldn't handle that much grease at one time."

"Well to be honest, you could have warned her!" Weiss said as she was looking though the bookshelves.

"Sorry, but the only thing going through my head was 'Wow I can't believe she's never had bacon and oh wow she's really scary when she's making demands."

Blake meanwhile was sitting at the breakfast table enjoying some nice hot tea while reading some smut novel she found in Jem's sisters room. But she made sure to make her own voice heard in between paragraphs.

"You could have told her not to eat too much when she was eating some, that way she would have been tranquil enough to listen to you, but also knowing her limitation when it came to how much she could eat."

"Okay fair enough, either way, she was having too much fun, I couldn't take that away from her." He looked around.

"Hey wheres Team JNPR?" He asked as Blake spoke up.

"They went to the store with Grandmama." She said as Jem scratched his head.

"Huh weird, Grandmama doesn't like anyone going to the store with her."

"She really likes Nora."

"Of course she does…."

She saw Nora eat about a metric ton of food and not put on any weight. She either considered her a challenge or a starving child, so she was trying to fatten her up.

Granted it was almost impossible because he had talked to Ren. Nora had the metabolism of a hummingbird. It was in part due to her natural metabolism and her semblance for electricity. Honestly it didn't make a lot of sense to him. If anything it sounded like something out of sci fi, but then again he wasn't going to question it, after all they did fight giant monsters with super powers and insane weapons. So was that really that uncommon to believe Nora had a high metabolism? The only thing he couldn't understand was if her metabolism was so high, wouldn't she be like the flash and have to constantly be eating? Or did she have the good parts of metabolism without the shitty never eating enough parts? He didn't know.

"Don't you have to work today?" Weiss asked.

"Nope, today is my day off to just go to the gym and relax." At this Yang felt the need to speak up.

"Man I haven't been in the gym for forever, last time I went, my bench was around 560, but then again that was before I really started training seriously." She said just thinking out loud. And Jem seemed to take what she said with a grain of salt.

But if you were to look inside him, you would see the pain that she had inflicted on him. And it was not pretty. But he had to hide the pain. So he put a smile on and said.

"Ah I get it, your aura helps boost you up." He said with a forced smile.

But in his head all he was hearing was.

"_She warms up with your max bench you small weak little bitch! Not even a pump can make you look big now!" _The voice in his head was mocking him.

He had no idea why the voice sounded like the guy from Broscience. But it still hurt like a bitch.

"Yang, we don't need to go to the gym at all." Weiss said as Jem felt some life returning to him.

"Granted, he may have to because he doesn't have aura, so he's not as strong as us, but that's just natural." And just like that, Weiss stabbed him in the heart.

Weiss was a petite delicate thing, the fact that she could squat more than him irritated the fuck out of him.

"If you think about it, it doesn't really count, I mean, we do fight giant Grimm, so of course we're considered superhuman here." Blake was a bit more polite, but still wasn't helping.

"Oh! Here Jem! I prepared this for you at the gym!" Ruby said as she gave him a shake.

"Whats in it?" He asked as his mind was taken off of the pain.

"Just try it!" She said as he took a sip.

Only for his senses to be dominated by the sheer ecstacy of cookie dough.

"It's a special cookie dough protein shake I made for you! No added sugars! And completely healthy!" \

"Thanks Ruby…." Suddenly his mood was rising.

"You drink enough of those, you'll be as strong as me one day!" Anndd there it was.

The last nail in the coffin.

"…..I need to go to my happy place….." He said as he left the house feeling depressed.

Stupid, bullshit anime powers…..


	12. Life Goes On

**So here we go, I was originally going to post yesterday, but it was my 25th birthday, so I decided to celebrate. Anyways, heres a chapter to tide you over until I get more ideas.**

* * *

Jem had come back from the gym to find that Winter had finished shitting her brains out in the bathroom. That being said, she still glared at Jem as he came back from his workout. Apparently the events of this morning had not left her unlike all the other stuff. Plus she was embarassed that she was carried bridal style back into the house so she could use the bathroom because Jem wouldn't let anyone take a dump in his motorhome as a common courtesey. Add that onto the fact that right after she was done using it, Jaune had gone in to use it and came out soon afterwards and complained it smelled like something died in there kind of killed Winter a little bit on the inside.

"You poisoned me."

"I did not, I simply did what you asked!"

"You should have stopped me from eating that much!" Winter wasn't mad she had eaten the bacon, it was delicious.

She was mad that she had eaten so much that it turned her insides into a picasso painting.

"Oh I'm sorry, so its my fault you couldn't resist stuffing your face?" Jem said as she glared.

"I had never had it before! How was I supposed to know it would affect me like this?"

"I LITERALLY warned you it was very greasy and you shouldn't eat too much in one sitting when you told me to go get more, but you said 'I don't get sick.' If anything you should be happy I carried you inside." Jem said as this was doing nothing to pacify her anger.

"And how do you reckon THAT?" Jem just got that shit eating grin.

"Because if it wasn't for me, your white pants would be stained brown."

SMACK

"Ha you missed me!" Jem said as he somehow dodged her slap and she got a pillow instead.

"You're lucky I can't move too much right now!" She said from her position on the couch.

"Look, I'm sorry you pretty much destroyed your temple of a body, but come on, do you really think I'm completely to blame? You did down a few more pounds than the average person." At this she went silent.

"Fine, I'm still mad at you." She said as Jem just shrugged.

"In other words, I just can't win."

"Shut up."

Again, Jem wasn't about to argue with a woman. It was like playing Chess with a pigeon, no matter what happened, they were going to shit on the board and act like they won the game. So he decided to just let it go. Either way, he was still having a pretty good day. The cougars at work decided to leave him alone. And then when he went to his Jiu Jitsu class, he tapped out one of the big motherfuckers he had been pissed at since he got there. Granted, he wasn't sure if it was luck or not, but either way he was pretty happy. You had to take those little victories every now and then.

"uuggghh." Winter felt her stomach growling in annoyance at her again.

Only for her to whip out a bottle of pepto bismol and start drinking it as if it was apple juice.

"….Is that safe to do?" Jem asked as he had never seen someone chug it.

"Shut up."

"Geez, just asking questions."

Needless to say, Jem was not expecting this. When he pictured anime characters coming to life, he never pictured he would be seeing one drinking Pepto bismol like it was beer. He also never pictured Yang and Ruby watching cartoons on the big screen tv in the living room. He also didn't expect Blake to be currently feeding some of the stray cats wandering around the property. Okay that one was a BIT odd, mostly due to the fact that he was wondering if all faunus had some stereotypical traits. Then again, it was a web series, so stereotypes were funny. So it would make sense if some faunus behaved in a way typical of whatever animal they were. After all, Blake did love her tuna and hated dogs. He shook his head of the thoughts. Going back to his original train of thought, nothing had turned out like he had expected.

Honestly, everyone seemed pretty relaxed here. Well, as relaxed anyone could be while knowing about the future. But then again, they did have a chance to change it all now, so again they couldn't complain. Still though, he expected more excitement out of this whole scenario. So far the funniest thing that had happened was when Winter had that bacon binge incident. But there was no crazy drunken antics, no weird anime logic, no big ass explosions for no reason. Granted, they did destroy his motorhome when he first got here, but that was different. That was technically their arrival, but after that, nothing crazy or exciting happened. Instead they had all been focusing on letting their hair down.

"I cant believe this….I'm actually bored with having real life characters here?" Jem couldn't believe this.

He had an oppurtunity fanboys could only dream of, and what was he doing? He was arguing with Winter over letting her eat too much, and basically letting everyone else relax in his house. Hell, Even Yang seemed content with just relaxing for a bit, and she saw herself lose an arm! They still did their morning training and such, but they did it early in the morning out in the woods, so nobody would see them. In other words, his life was still pretty much the same so far.

"Well, can't say I'm too mad about that, I mean, better this than them accidentally blowing up my motorhome again." All of a sudden his eyes went wide.

"No! No! I mean it! No blowing up my motorhome!" He said to whatever diety was in charge of his life story.

Suddenly he heard the tv going off in the room that Winter was in. Sighing he decided to go see what she was up to.

"Please tell me youre not watching anot-" Suddenly Jem froze. He saw that Winter had a box set of dvds out.

She was watching his box set of the hobbit and lord of the rings films….EXTENDED edition.

Ba bump!

He felt his heart skip a beat.

Not out of love, he just had drank a shit ton of caffeine and it was fucking up his heartbeat.

"You're watching….." He couldn't even finish his sentence.

"It looked interesting." She said.

He smiled a bit at her.

"Well, I think we finally found something we can agree on."

"Shut up. I still don't know if I'll like this or not."

"Jesus, and just like that you gave me hope and took it away." He walked out of the room.

He knew that Winter had a soft side, but he was having a hard time reaching it. But one thing was for sure, if she didn't like the hobbit or lotr movies, then chances are they would not get along that well. Then again, they weren't really getting along before, so would anything really change? He didn't even know.

"Ah screw it, I'm going out to the garage." He said as he went out to go work on his motorcycle.

It wasn't anything fancy yet, since he was still new to motorcycles, he had only bought an old Iron 883, it wasn't the biggest bike there was, but it was great for him to start on. He didn't have to buy a big bike he would have no idea how to ride right now. He just needed something to help him get comfortable with riding again and then he could buy something more suitable for long road trips.

He cracked open a spotted cow and got to work. Nothing too fancy to fix, just replacing some old rusted parts and making sure everything was clean. He wanted everything to run as smoothly as possible. It was therapeautic in a way, most people would consider working on your vehicle to be a pain in the ass, but for Jem it was relaxing in a way. It was like leveling up your knowledge in a video game, you may not enjoy the part replacement, it may be stressful and hard, but in the end, you're more knowledgable than you were before. Sure he may accidentally fuck it up, but in that case he could either learn from his mistakes and fix it before it got worse, or he could take it to someone who knew what they were doing. The point is you needed to learn things in order to grow as a person.

If you just sat around all day bitching about how things didn't change while you did nothing to improve your life, then you might as well be dead already.

"Mind if I join you?" Ruby asked as she came outside to the garage.

"Sure, I don't mind, but I thought you were watching cartoons with Yang?"

"Eh, she wanted to watch the fights, and I didn't, so I decided to find something else to do." She said as she sat down on a chair next to Jem.

He reached into his cooler and he handed her a strawberry milkeshake drink.

"Thanks!" She said as she couldn't believe he had those on hand.

"So, you seem to be taking this whole situation pretty well?" She prodded as he shrugged his shoulders.

"It is what it is, I'm just glad it was you guys that came through instead of Grimm, as cool as it would be to shoot one, I'm not sure how effective my rifle and my pistol would be on them." He joked as he wasn't sure if regular bullets would do a lot.

"You would be surprised, normal swords cut a Grimm's head off as easily as anything else." She said as she remembered seeing Jaune fight.

"True, but don't you guys also have aura that amplifies your strength?"

"Okay, fair enough."

Jem replaced another part on his motorcycle as he took another sip of spotted cow.

"Its just, this world is really different from what I'm used to." She said as Jem raised a brow.

"Well that's for sure."

"It doesn't help I saw everything that happened…." Ruby said as she remembered how she watched up to Volume 7.

"Oh?"

"Its just a lot to take in, I'm still just a student, but I saw myself become a full fledged hunttress, I saw myself part of things I never would have imagined, I even saw myself with powers you only hear about in fairy tales, and its just a lot to take in all at once you know?" She said as Jem realized something.

In the show she had been exposed to everything little by little, but now it was all coming at her at once, it had to be a lot to take in.

"Hey, just remember, you know how things turn out, you guys can do what you want to change the future, at this point don't take everything you saw at face value, because now you can take steps to avoid that future."

"But what about Salem? We can't just ignore her."

"Obviously not, you can still fight her, but it doesn't take beacon academy being destroyed in order for that to happen right?"

"…Yeah you're right, sorry its just a lot on my mind lately." She said as she looked at his motorcycle.

"You know, I could work my way around this…" She said as Jem looked skeptical.

"Uhhhhh, yeeaaahhh sorry but this is my bike and I'm not sure how I feel about that."

"Awww, come on! I used to help Yang with her bike all the time!"

"Yeah, but doesn't it also run on dust or something like that?"

"Nope, runs on plain old gas."

"Wait really?"

"Yeah, what did you think everything we have is powered by dust?"

"Well…..Yeah?"

"Nope, we still do have gasoline, but not everything is run by dust, so we still have alternative fuel sources."

"Oh okay, alright then, you can help, but don't break anything."


	13. A Nice Conversation with Winter

**Okay guys, sorry I've been gone for so long. But things have gotten pretty busy for me. After leave. I basically hit the ground running with training. But I do have some good news, I officially have less than a year left in the army. So getting close to starting the next chapter of my life. Should have my last student loan paid off this year, can move back home, temporarily of course, because I don't plan on staying in Illinois for the rest of my life. And I can focus on the next chapter of my life. **

**Now just a few things to get out of the way, not sure how much time I'll have to write, considering training picked up, but I'm starting to outprocess, and hopefully get some trade school training on base. If I can get into that, I can have a good paying job right out of the army, and I can focus more on building a side career in fitness.**

**Now, for those who keep messaging me asking for my facebook or instagram. Again, not giving that out unless I talk to you for awhile. **

**Either way, enjoy this short chapter.**

* * *

"What the hell? I was gone for five minutes!" Jem said as he saw Ruby had somehow mounted a mini gun on his motorcycle.

"Don't you like it?"

"Well, my inner american is saying Yee Yee…." Jem said but Ruby was confused.

"Buuuuttt?"

"I can't ride that on the street unless the boogaloo kicks off."

"The what?"

"Don't worry about it, look Ruby, I can't legally ride that on the road, please take it off."

"Awww…..do you want me to leave the mount on so if you change your mind you could put it back on?"

"…Yeah that's fine." Like Jem said, if the boogaloo ever kicked off that would be cool to have.

Granted, it would be kind of impractical because of the weight, balance being thrown off, and the fact that it didn't even include the ammunition or the lack of cover, but it looked cool, and lets face it, everyone has a mall ninja moment where they buy or use totally impractical things.

But the point is, Jem was kind of sad it wasn't very practical or in this case street legal. But the good news is they had done a good job at fixing his bike up. Surprisingly Ruby was a bit of a mechanical wiz kid even if she had some rather odd ideas.

The laws of physics must be completely different in the world of remnant. Then again, who the hell was he kidding, Coco had a fucking minigun in a purse.

"Here you go!" She tossed the mini gun to him.

The surprising part was when he caught it and it didn't weigh as much as he thought.

"What the hell? Shouldn't this weigh a lot more?"

"Nope! Made it out of some spare metal I had on me!"

"….Spare metal? But it feels light, more importantly, you didn't have a bag on you when you showed up! And further, how the hell did you have enough to make a mini gun?!" Jem knew he really shouldn't be asking questions, but it was making no sense.

"Anime logic!" Ruby said as Jem groaned.

"Are you seriously going to use that now because you found out you're in a web series?"

"Yep! I don't have to explain anything!" Ruby teased.

"Oh come on!"

"Nope! Your curiousity will not be sated."

"You're surprisingly evil."

"Yang told me its good to be a tease!"

At that, Jem froze a bit.

"Uh….Ruby, what did you think she meant by that?"

"Well, I assume she meant teasing people playfully like pranks or something!"

Jem couldn't believe this, he knew Ruby was pretty innocent, but he would have figured seeing the future of her world would have at least given her an idea about adult interactions. But then again who was he kidding. His life was turning into one giant gag.

"Look, Ruby…." She was looking at him expecting to learn something new.

"Go ask Yang." He said as she groaned.

"Why?"

"1. Because I'm ten years older than you, and if I explain to you what she meant, I'm gonna go to fucking jail." Jem explained as Ruby was still confused.

"Uh okay, I guess I'll go ask Yang then."

Jem breathed out a sigh of relief. He really didn't want to explain that when Yang said 'be a tease' it meant…you know the other thing. Seriously, he really didn't want to explain that. Hell, he didn't even like it when he had to have the birds and the bees talk with one of his younger cousins. It was awkward as hell.

He sighed as he thought of what he wanted to do next. So he decided to go over and grab a homemade protein smoothie mixed with a banana, some ice cubes, a scoop of protein, some tart cherry juice, and a bit of almond milk.

Good for muscle building and for helping the joints, plus it was delicious. Just had to make sure he worked legs today. Since he knew he had a habit of neglecting it on days he felt like shit. He took a sip from it as he sat back in an office chair he kept in the garage and turned his radio on. The sound of Heilung helping him relax from working on the bike.

"What is that noise?" Winter asked as she heard Maria Franz vocals in Othan.

"It's music, I'm taking a break." He said as he took off his hoodie revealing his tank top and letting himself breath a bit.

"Sounds like something out of those films you were asking me about.' She said as Jem looked back really suddenly.

"Did you finish them all?" He asked excited to hear her opinion on lord of the rings and the hobbit.

"I did." She said as Jem leaned forward.

"Annnnd?"

"Well…..Yes I enjoyed them." He breathed out a sigh of relief.

"But that being said, the dwarves looked a bit cartoonish in the hobbit films." Jem was about to say something but he stopped.

Originally he was worried she was going to bring up that bullshit 'Why didn't they fly the eagles to Mordor.' Argument. But she actually brought up one of the points he agreed with.

"Yeah, pretty sure the reason they did that was because the hobbit was intended more and less as a childrens book." He said as she made an 'Oh' face.

"Either way, the first three were much better than the hobbit films."

"No argument there, but both trilogies are entertaining."

"one question though, I also read the books and-"

"Wait, you read the books in the time since we last talked?"

"Well yeah, we had time."

"It was literally yesterday."

"I will borrow a line from my sisters friend and say 'Anime logic'." At this Jem got mad.

"Oh you got to be kidding me, is everyone going to use that anytime they do something that makes zero sense or is impossible?"

"My point is, I don't quit understand why they made the hobbit into three films when it could have been one?"

"Well, honestly I want to go into the easy explanation and say Money, but to be honest, I don't know. All I know is I enjoyed them."

"It doesn't bother you at all?"

"Nah, I will admit it bothers me how some things in the book got changed or how some of the characters in the movies weren't in the book, but again, the films make up with it with those touching scenes with Bilbo and Thorin, I mean come on, the scene where he's dying and apologizing to Bilbo, that shit touches your soul."

"Agreed…" She said as she admitted to having to dab her eyes a bit during that scene.

"I will admit, I felt sad for Boromir." At this Jem got happy.

"Yeah, because if you see the extended movies and read the books, hes a much more sympathetic character." Jem stated.

"Plus the idea of a man under so much pressure to save his people, trying to do the right thing, but is brought to a rage where he's blinded amongst all the anger and fear stuck with me." She thought to herself as she remembered what she saw with General Ironwood being under so much pressure.

"Yeah, but still if you like those books, I got some more recommendations."

"I would like that." She said as Jem suddenly realized something.

"Huh, funny." He said as she raised an eyebrow.

"What?"

"Well, this is probably the first pleasant conversation we've actually had that didn't involve you lecturing me or threatening me with violence at the end of it." He joked as she narrowed her eyes.

"Are you trying to tempt me?"

"Nope! I'm okay with this."

"Good, because it would be a shame to ruin a pleasant conversation." She sat down in another office chair he had.

"Do you have anything to drink?"

"Yeah, in that fridge, theres protein shakes, some soda, some water, and some yoo hoos." He said as she gave him an odd look.

"Huh odd, no alcohol? That's a surprise for once."

"Hey, I may enjoy a cold beer every now and then, but I know my limits."

"You literally drank 24 bottles worth of guinness to piss me off."

"Well yeah, but that was because you threw my beer out, normally I wouldn't do that. I'm not 21 anymore you know."

"I just don't understand you, you make so many unhealthy choices, and yet you actually care?"

"Winter, did you seriously only eat healthy food before coming here?" Jem asked.

"Yes, I never saw a reason not to."

"Look, you can care about your health without only eating healthy, one bad meal isn't going to ruin your body, its like if a morbidly obsese person eats a salad, it doesn't mean they're suddenly going to be skinny, you got to find balance."

"You're not going to come at me with some Bruce Lee quotes are you?" She rolled her eyes.

"What? No and…wait you know who Bruce Lee is?"

"I went through your movie and book collection, so yes I know who he is."

"Well the point is, Nope, but either way, the thing about balance still stands. Its like how you can enjoy spending money as long as you know when to save it, its how life works."

"I suppose." She said as she grabbed a Yoo Hoo.

"Hmmm, pretty good." She said as she had never had chocolate before now.

"See? Enjoy it, but remember, don't overdo it like you did with the bacon."

She glared at him a little at that.

"Hey, you yelled at me for not warning you then, so I figured I would do it now."

"…..For once you said something smart."

"HA! Wait….what?" Did she just call him an idiot?


	14. Bad Matchmakers

**I'll be honest, I just wrote this to get something written down for the next chapter. Because I'm trying to incorporate new elements in this time rather than it being strictly WInter and Jem falling in love quickly. Going to try and write some more realistic scenarios and shit.**

* * *

Jem got ready for his morning run. He put on a pair of Vanquish sweat pants, along with a t shirt and his hoodie with Perseus holding the decapitated head of Medusa on. It was a bit colder out today. But he figured Winter time eventually had to pick up, winter had been too nice in Illinois this year, so it was only a matter of time before they all had to choke on Wintertime's fat dick.

Also henonly realized how weird it was to refer to Winter now because they had the season and the lady staying with them. So whenever he said something like 'Man, fuck Winter.' He had to make sure he clarified he meant the season and not the woman.

"Are you ready to go?" He suddenly heard a voice as he saw Winter was standing there in her own set of jogging clothes.

"huh? What are you doing here?"

"What? I have to do morning PT same as you." She said as she started stretching.

"Well yeah, but why run with me?"

"You were already on the way out, and it would be better to jog with someone else versus by myself, especially since I don't know the area."

"But, can't you run much faster than me because of Aura?"

"No, believe it or not, Atlas prioritizes physical training without the help of Aura as we won't always have that option, so I'm sure you can handle a 7 minute mile pace." Jem breathed out a sigh of relief at that.

He could handle a seven minute mile pace, he was worried she was going to be going at least a 3 minute mile. Which would suck balls.

"I also want to go to the gym with you today." At this he groaned.

"What? Why?"

"Because I'm getting sick of staying here all the time and not doing anything productive! We've been here a week, and all I've done is sat around, watched movies, and read books!" She said as she unintentionally snapped.

"Oh I see…..you can't stay still for long can you?"

"…..No….No I cannot."

Jem could understand that, it was how everyone who worked for so long would feel. Hell, after being in the army for three years, he found out he couldn't stop waking up early in the morning to go and work out. The difference was it was on his own time and he could do whatever he wanted, something which he didn't have access to beforehand. And then of course as soon as he went on Terminal leave, he also found that he didn't like not being busy. He liked to work, you couldn't just go back to doing nothing when you had spent so long working.

It was funny, you spent most of your time at work wishing for free time, but then when It was over you spent most of your time wishing for work if you didn't have any hobbies to take up your free time.

"Well okay, just a light jog, and then we'll go to the gym." He said as he drank the last bit of his coffee.

"Can you talk while jogging?"

"Of course."

And with that, the two set out on a run. It was still January, so it was a bit cold out in Illinois. Jem was wearing his neck and face protector with the symbol of a phoenix on it as Winter kept in pace with him. He was honestly surpised, he didn't think she would want to exercise with him, nor did the think she would even want to talk to him. But seems like she was finally starting to chill out a bit. Granted, she still didn't like his habits nor his enlisted attitude, but she realized she would have to deal with it until they got home.

"So can I ask you something?" She asked as he nodded.

"Yeah sure go ahead."

"Well, I noticed that you had a dart board with Robyn Hill's face on it." She said as he shrugged his shoulders.

"Honestly she just annoyed the fuck out of me." He said as went back to focusing on jogging.

"Why?"

"Because she's based on Robin Hood, and yet she has none of the charisma, and gave me stick up the ass vibes, rather than a witty outlaw." He said as Winter raised an eyebrow.

"But, would you agree that she's trying to do the right thing?"

"Everyone always talks about doing the right thing, doesn't mean you can't find them irritating as fuck. If anything, them bitching and complaining about how they're trying to do the right thing makes them even more annoying." Winter was honestly surprised at his attitude.

"Odd, I thought you were an optimist?"

"Oh I am, that being said, I also don't believe in solving the rest of the world's issues."

"But….hang on, I don't understand, are you saying you don't care about the world?"

"Yes and No."

"Explain."

"Well, lets say the world is mostly good, and your life is good, your family and friends are good, but then ou of nowhere, someone says 'Hey there are people halfway across the country who need your support because they're struggling financially.' In that case, I don't care, they're not my problem, now obviously when it comes to big stuff like another world war or a plague, that's a reason to care, because that's something important. But honestly, a lot of things I see happening in the world don't bother me enough to want to change."

"So…..you're completely fine with bad things happening?"

"In some regards, if you spend your life trying to fix every little problem with the world that you can't solve, you're going to be miserable, but if you can solve the problems youn face in your life, you're all set to go and live a happier life."

"I can't say I agree with that, especially knowing what I know now."

"Eh yeah, all I know is, most of the worlds issues, I don't care about, I mean yeah, I'm passionate about some things, like Environmentalism, health and fitness, and honor, but it doesn't bother me that there are some issues in the world I can't change. Sometimes you have to accept there are things you won't be able to fix in your lifetime, you can certainly alleviate some of them, but you won't fix them." Winter wasn't sure if she liked where this was going.

"Are you saying its hopeless for us to think of beating Salem?"

"I don't know. The show is still in progress, and sure theres hope for you guys, I mean come on, it's a web series about a fight between good and evil, while it may throw some heartbreaking moments in, Good will always triumph." That did make Winter feel better.

Until she remembered one thing.

"And what about here?"

"Oh, evil is always going to exist, you can't stop it, only defend yourself against it." He said as she guessed that made sense.

"But doesn't it bother you that somewhere in the world there is something you may hate going on?"

"Nope, because again, I'm not going to be able to solve everyone's problems, and to be honest, as long as my family and friends are safe, then I'm fine. That's my world. You don't have to agree with me, that's just how I see it." He said as they continued their jog.

To be honest, the reason Winter was asking him was because she knew this world was different. Plus finding out that in this world your whole life was a tv show was a bit unnerving. To think that people would view their lives for entertainment was actually appaling considering the horrors she saw. But then she remembered, to them it wasn't real. She felt the same way when she watched a movie. So she was not going to judge Jem for saying what he did. After all, as far as he was concerned, this was just a really odd time in his life.

"One more thing."

"Fire away."

"Why do people watch our show?" She asked as Jem looked at her.

"That depends, why do you watch movies."

"For entertainment."

"Okay, now I'll ask you this, is everyone on this planet like you?"

"OF course not, Aura doesn't seem to be prominent here."

"More like non existent unless some bullshit plot device comes up." He said as she looked confused.

"Never mind." He gathered his thoughts.

"The point is, we watch it because its entertaining and probably as a form of escapism or motivation." He started to being his long explanation.

"We live pretty boring and easy lives, literally humanity here has evolved so fast that we've become bored with our current state of existence, so we surround ourselves with stuff to fulfill our fantasies, it could be something like fighting monsters with bad ass weapons, having superpowers, or being sent to a different world or different time period, the fact is we day dream about stuff like that all the time, so of course someone will take an interest in your show, because it symbolizes something we can never have." He took a breath really quick.

"We won't ever get to fight monsters, we won't have superpowers, sure you can work on becoming stronger and more dangerous, but we will never have semblances, we won't be able to punch someone so hard they fly out a door, we want something that can give us that feeling.

Winter had to admit, it was interesting to hear his thoughts on everything, even if she didn't agree with everything he said. She admitted he had a point when it came to issues hundreds of miles away from him not being his problem, but she considered it kind of callous. That being said, he did seem to care about those he was close to, but again, seemed like an odd way to live life. It wasn't as if he was saying he wanted people to suffer, just that just because a stranger was suffering somewhere, it didn't mean it was automatically his problem. She couldn't even begin to understand that.

He drove them to the gym after chugging about two scoops of pre-workout. She couldn't believe he slammed that like a beer, but then again she had drank coffee to help her wake up who knows how many times, so she couldn't judge him for wanting an edge on a workout.

"JEMMY!" A long haired twink looking motherfucker hugged Jem as he walked in the gym.

"Goddamit Alex, how many times do I have to tell you not to call me that, and what the hell have I said about wearing more masculine clothes?" Jem said as he noticed Alex was wearing hot pink yoga pants that he was certain he borrowed from his girlfriend along with a tanktop with a bunny on it.

"But my girlfriend likes me in this!" Jem looked down and his eyes widened.

**_"Holy fuck, no wonder why, he's got a fucking horse cock...why do some people get all the luck?" _**Jem would be lying if he said he wasn't jealous. Sadly the tight yoga pants revealed a very LARGE object.

He was not small by any means necessary, but goddamit, why did such a feminine looking guy have such a big dick? It wasn't fair.

"Oh? Who is this?" Alex said as he shook Winter's hand.

"Jemmy! Did you finally get a girlfriend?" At this Jem groaned.

"No, this is an old friend from the military, and no she's not my type." Winter was about to defend herself but then she thought about the second half.

_"Not his type? He called me a big tiddy cosplay girlfriend when we first met." _Winter glared at him as Alex pouted.

"Oh such a shame, but I can tell, she's very fit!" Alex said as he looked her over.

"Oooohh giiirrrlll how do you get an ass that nice? I've been trying so hard!" Alex pouted again as he looked at himself in the mirror.

"Alex...please get back to your workout, this is my time to relax, I'll help you later." Alex smiled and left.

"Okey dokie!" He said as he flicked his wrist out and walked away.

Winter was honestly stunned.

"Yeah, thats Alex, he's-"

"Gay?"

"Surprisingly not." Jem said as he still thought Alex was gay but not out of the closet.

"He seems...energetic."

"He's a nice guy, but he can be a bit much, his girlfriend really likes feminine guys."

"Is she secretly a lesbian."

"Nope, just the only girl in a family of boys, so she enjoys someone more feminine. Can we please get to working out?"

"Uhm sure."

Little did both of them know.

"Oh my gaawwwddd Honey, they would be such a cute couple!" Alex told his girlfriend as she looked them both over.

"Are you sure? Jem's a bit too carefree, and she seems more dominatrix mixed with ice queen."

"Oh hunny, you know that ice queen exterior is waiting to be melted!"

"I don't know, I'm pretty sure the last thing Jem wants is a girlfriend like her."

"He doesn't know what he wants when it comes to women!"

"How do you know?"

"Babe, I may not know much about muscles, but I know a lot about women."

"Yeah I know, but I'm skeptical, why do you care so much about his love life anyways?"

"Simple! He was super depressed that he didn't get a chance with you?"

"What do you mean?"

"Baabbbe, come on, you're a girl who walks up to a guy in the gym and asks him to help your BOYFRIEND work out, that shit HURTS."

"I didn't think much of it."

"Well it was still a dick move."

"So...let me get this straight, you want to try and help him get a date because you feel bad for him?"

"It's the least I can do for him helping me build up a more toned physique!"

His girlfriend rolled her eyes at that. But then again, she supposed she did owe Jem that much for helping her boyfriend get more of a swimmers bod. However, with that being said.

"I'm not helping you hook him up with that girl, I'm going to find him another girl."

"Oooohhh, competition! I like it!"

Meanwhile, Jem had the nervous feeling that someone was playing games with his life, and he didn't like it.


	15. Momento Mori

**Hey, sorry guys, this isn't another chapter. The truth is, something bad has happened. This morning I got a call that one of the men from my platoon, one of my buddies was shot and killed after a party off base.  
**

**The truth is, I didn't believe it at first. Just seemed like a dream, but it was real. Worst part is his wife is pregnant and is close to giving birth. And now his son will never know his father.**

**Its just something that came out of nowhere, and its not something I expected to ever happen to someone I care about. If I had known friday was the last day I would talk to him, I would have said something more than what I did.**

**This is just a way to help me cope. I know it won't bring him back, but I wanted to do a small tribute to him anyways. I know I didn't know him as well as I could have, but he was a great guy, he was funny and had a good attitude about life.**

**Rest in Peace Dearius. **

* * *

"Why are we stopping here?" Winter asked as Jem was silent through the whole trip.

"Just need to do something really quick." He said as he stepped out of the truck.

Winter noticed that they were parked at a graveyard. She didn't step out at first. She saw Jem walk all the way over to an obsidian grave marker and pull out a flask and pour some of its contents out onto the grave. Curious, she got out and walked over to him.

The tombstone didn't have a name, just initials, DF.

"Who was he?"

"A friend."

"Was he killed in action?"

"No...he was killed over here in the world, drive by shooting." Jem said as he put his hand on the tombstone.

"I'm sorry..." Winter knew it had to be tough to lose a friend.

"Truth is...when I was in, we knew there was a chance we could deploy and possibly die, but knowing that he was killed over here by some thug...it just hit different, it hurt like hell..." He said as he clenched his hand tightly on the grave.

"But...I know theres no changing the past...if there was, I would have gone back and said something more than just joking with him about his PT test...I would have asked to go have a beer with him, I would have done anything if it meant I could see him laughing and joking with us all again...and now part of me is filled with regret, because now I know I'll never have the chance to be closer to him..." Jem admitted he still had trouble dealing with it.

"But again, I know he probably would look down on us telling us to get over his death and enjoy life while we can." Jem stood up.

"Is that the reason you are the way you are?"

"Sort of, truth is, I know life is fleeting and only death is guaranteed, so I know theres no point in wasting time on petty stupid shit, no time to waste complaining about how because your food was late, it means your day is ruined...because it could always be worse."

"If at the end of your day your friends and family are still with you, then its a good day to be alive." Jem left the flask at the grave site.

"I'll see you next week Big D...we all miss you."

With that, the two got back in the truck and left.

You can't change the past, but you can live for the future.


	16. Jem's problem with Winter

**Hey everyone, trying to get another chapter in, truth is, feeling better since the last chapter. I've had times to adjust to the fact that my friend is gone. We have the funeral to go to on valentines day. So spent a lot of time getting my uniform ready. Still hard to believe what happened. But the good news is, his wife is healthy, the baby is still a month away from being born, and we've all agreed we're going to do whatever we can to help her.**

**It doesn't change what happened, but hopefully we can all help give the kid a better life.**

**Anyways, good news is I have a new tattoo scheduled for the 28th. So pretty happy about that.**

* * *

**Jem**

Jem was honestly glad that Winter wasn't using Aura, because she was surprisingly strong without it. Granted, still not as strong as him, which he was incredibly thankful for. He didn't know if he could deal with a woman with smaller arms than him being stronger than him. That would just be a blow to his self esteem. The only problem was she was still being a bit cocky about her strength. And Jem was tempted to knock her down a peg or two. The only problem was he wasn't entirely sure how to do that. He already knew he couldn't beat her in anything that required brains. Not because he was stupid, but because he knew she had to be highly educated being a Schnee. But she was matching him in terms of strength, so again that wasn't helping.

And there was Winter herself. To be honest, he wasn't sure what to make of her. To be honest, he found her sexy, that much was obvious from when he saw her clothes all torn up when she was first brought to his world. But if he was also honest, she was also kind of snooty and a pain in the ass. Which surprised him, because she seemed a lot more humble in the show, but now she seemed a bit arrogant. He wasn't sure if it was because at the time period they arrived from if it was before she got humbled, or maybe she was always like this, but the show only covered her interactions with other huntsman. He didn't know, the point was, it kind of irritated him.

Did they get along? Well...yeah they got along just fine, but the point was she still got on his nerves a lot. She often seemed to look down on certain aspects of his way of life. Which, that wasn't uncommon, a lot of people looked down on Redneck types. Plus there was also the fact that it was taking him FOREVER to get her to try foods that weren't high class. I mean, he knew she was a special operative, but how is it that she still ate only fine dining and healthy food? Was Remnant just that much better in terms of food for their armies?

The point was, despite the fact they got along, Jem did have his issues with her. She was a bit too high class, and had a bit of a stick up her ass.

"Kale smoothie with 1/2 a scoop of protein, 15 blueberries, a cup of oats, blah blah blah." Jem tuned out Winter's complicated order for a health shake.

He was thankful there was a smoothie king close to his hometown now, he had gotten addicted to it when he was stationed at Campbell. And it made for a better dessert when he was cutting out ice cream, plus it was his treat to himself after a long hard workout, it was having a meal and a dessert all in one if you really thought about it. Plus, really helped him with his gains.

"And its on him." Winter said as Jem rolled his eyes.

_"Goddamit, I'm a gentleman, and I know she doesn't have any american money, but does she have to get the biggest most expensive and complicated thing they offer? Thats just rude and uncalled for." _He said as he was really going to have to try to find some way to humble her.

"Jem! Jem! Jem! Can I please get one?" Ruby said with puppy dog eyes as all of RWBY and JNPR had joined him today.

"...Yes Ruby...you can have whatever you like..." He couldn't help it, she just looked so adorable.

"Yay!" She went up to order but then she stopped and looked back.

"I'll only go with a 20oz, I don't want to cost you to much." And with that Jem's heart melted.

_"Holy fucking shit, I swear to god if I ever have a daughter, I hope she's as adorable and sweet as Ruby." _Not only was she adorable, but she was going with the cheaper option.

Following her sisters example, Yang and the others followed suit. Making Winter the only one who got the most expensive thing on the menu. Which again, Jem was mad about. But again, he couldn't step up to the plate and serve her a piece of humble pie until he knew what to do.

Honestly, he had to admit. This whole situation was much different than what he thought it would be in his fanfics he wrote years ago. I mean hell, he remember that self insert he wrote when drunk where he had Salem and Sienna Khan fight with sex toys. He was surprised anyone made it past that chapter. But again, it was all in the past, nothing he could do about it now. The point was, he knew for a fact that IF this situation ever happened in real life, it wouldn't be anything like the crack that he wrote. But again, he was still expecting something a bit more than this. Instead, despite Winter's irritating habits, this had all been pretty wholesome.

"Hey Jem, why do you have so many tattoos?" Yang asked noticing he was wearing his tank, showing off his numerous tattoos.

"Well, short answer, I like tattoos." He said not feeling like explaining it.

"Oh come on, you got to give me more than that." She said as he realized he was going to have to give the long explanation.

"Well, all of my tattoos represent my heritage or ideals, for example, the family crest on a shield along with the motto of our clan back in Scotland, where as the Valkyrie on my other arm represents my Nordic heritage, along with the Icelandic symbol on my delt, and the Bindrune on my chest." He said as Ruby was looking at them.

"But don't they hurt?" She asked as she couldn't stand needles.

"Honestly...a little, but it kind of feels good too." He had no idea why, but it was a good kind of pain.

"But...don't some people think you look...you know..." Weiss was trying to think of a nice way to say it.

"Thuggish?" He finished.

"I was going to say intimidating." She was really trying to clean up her word use.

"Eh big deal, people are going to believe what they want to believe." He said as it didn't bother him.

"It doesn't get to you?"

"Not really, why live your life constantly trying to get everyone to like you? You'll drive yourself crazy trying to make everyone happy, besides, I'm pretty sure Pyrrha over there can attest to my character." He said as Jaune looked at Pyrrha confused.

"What does he mean?" Pyrrha giggled a bit at it.

"I saw him baby talking to Zeus, calling him his 'cutie patootie, snuffy fluffy puppy dog' At this everyone looked at Jem like he was retarded.

"Hey, if you're so tough you can't baby talk to your dog, get the fuck out of here." Jem was very passionate about that.

Seriously, dogs were some of the best gifts the gods ever gave anyone. If you can't baby talk to your dog like its your child, then you needed to go home and rethink your life. Granted he will admit it was funny, one time he was out walking with some of his army buddies, and naturally, when you have a group of fit guys who all have tattoos, some people will be intimidated, little did they know that that particular day he passed by a couple who thought they were criminals, that they actually came back from a pony ranch where they baby talked to ponies while feeding them carrots.

The moral of the story is kids...even if the guys in question look like criminals or hard asses, chances are they're just a bunch of softies with tattoos.

Unless they actually turn out to be hard asses in tattoos, in which case your fear is justified. But the point is, sometimes you're wrong.

"Besides, I didn't get them because I wanted to look bad ass, I got them for the symbolism behind them, and because it helps my personal aesthetic."

"Wouldn't fly in the Atlesian military." Winter threw in her two cents.

"Ugh, good thing we're not in Atlas, shit I don't even wanna imagine what my life would be like in the Atlesian military." Jem had a feeling that it would be similar to his time as an 11B, but somehow even weirder.

"Anyways, why did you ask me about my tattoos?" Jem asked as Yang shrugged.

"Honestly, while there are tattoos on Remnant, you're the first person I've met whos so...thoroughly tattooed."

"...Its just my upper arms and some of my chest." He said as he didn't even considered himself all inked up.

"Well compared to everyone on Remnant, you're practically a walking picture."

"...Come to think of it, I don't remember seeing a lot of tattoos in the show."

Probably because he imagined it would be a pain in the ass to animate them.

Everyone went back to the house after they got their smoothies, Jem was kind of annoyed because again, he paid for everyones because they didn't have Earth cash. But again, everyone had the deceny to get the more affordable options on the menu, while Winter got the most expensive, so that kind of a dick move.

He was cheap when it came to certain things, so one of his pet peeves was people who spent money crazy like. Then again, he also imagined Winter was used to having money, so maybe it was possible she didn't realize what she was doing to his wallet? If so, then he would feel like a bit of a dick.

But if she was aware of what she was doing, then he was going to be justifiably pissed off.

He was like the dad from everyone hate Chris.

Hell he didn't even like giving rides to people if he coudl avoid it.

_"You want a ride down the road? Thats like 68 cents worth of gas I would be using up!"_

Hey, you may have hated that character as a kid for being cheap, but once you get old enough you start to understand him.

As soon as they got back to the house. He went up to Winter.

"Hey, so, maybe next time go with the better option." He said as Winter seemed confused.

"I'm sorry? I got the largest offer with the most nutritional value." She said as Jem sighed.

"Yeah, but that costs a lot."

"I know, but I'm sure you understand." At this Jem's eyes hardened.

"...Come again?"

"Well, I'm sure you know how important it is to keep your body in top shape, so I imagine you don't mind helping me keep my body at peak performance." She said as Jem was not a happy camper.

"...Your special concotion costs about triple what everyones else were..."

"As I said, the most nutritional value for what I could get, its imperative I don't get weak here."

"That shake you ordered cost me like forty bucks!"

"And your kindess is appreciated."

Jem was standing there shaking as he realized this little devil knew EXACTLY what she was doing.

"Oh, I have to go, shower time." She said as she ran off and Jem groaned.

She used the shower in the motor home, and she always used a lot of hot water...which ran up his heating bill for his motor home because his water was heated by propane, and she used up a lot of it everytime she showered, which meant he had to keep getting it refilled. And it was just really annoying.

"Jem, you know what you need to do." Pa said as he watched his son.

"Dad, you know I can't do that."

"Son, look she's a nice girl most of the time, but you're letting her walk over you."

"Well what am I supposed to do? I can't be the dickhead who kicks a woman out of the house when she's practically homeless."

"You don't have to, you just have to show her that YOU are in charge." Pa said as Ma agreed.

"Thats right Son." She said as Jem sighed.

"And how do you want me to do that?" He asked as they went quiet.

"...Well, we'll be honest, we don't know, but I guarantee you, it will come to you one day." Ma said as Jem sighed.

"Anyways, anything you guys need me to do?" Jem asked as he needed something to take his mind off of Winter spending money.

"Cows need feeding."

"Gotcha." He siad as he put his jacket back on and went to go feed the cows.

"That boys going to have to lay down the law soon." Grandmama said as both parents looked at her.

"So are we all in agreement here?"

"The girl may be a bit snobbish at times, but I do believe they would be a good match." Grandmama said as they both nodded.

"I assumed you also got that call from Alex?" Ma and Pa asked as Grandmama nodded.

"Yes, the boy may be a bit light in the loafers, but he's got a fine eye for matchmaking." Grandmama said as both Ma and Pa couldn't believe what she said.

"Prreettyy sure he's not gay, considering how Jem was brokenhearted that Alex was dating the girl he wanted."

"Oh please, theres no way he's completely straight, he helped me bake quiche." Grandmama said as Ma and Pa forgot the old woman had no filter.

"Why were you baking with him?"

"Oh, he goes to my Yoga class."

"...Since when do you do Yoga?"

"Since I realized how in shape all the young men are."

"OH GROSS! MOM! YOU'RE 92 YEARS OLD!"

"We're getting off the subject! Are we all in agreement that in given time, they would be a good match?"

"Okay yeah in time." Pa said but Ma added on.

"But he's letting her dig her spurs in."

"Oh I wouldn't worry about him, a woman like that is like a wild horse, all it takes is one rough rider to break her in."

"...Mom please tell me you're not suggesting they sleep together right off the bat."

"Ugh! No, but a woman like that needs to be tamed, and its going to take a lot to do that."

"...Mom...I worry about what is going to happen now that you said that."


	17. Jem's Blind Date

**Okay everybody, so right now trying to get as much updated as possible. Especially fics I haven't touched in awhile, but as you know, motivation for them is waning mostly due to lost interest as well as me being busy and focusing on other parts of life. So I'll tell you this. Recently I've started to focus more on the gym, work, as well as planning out my future outside the army. I have about 11 months left, so I need to prepare so I can go straight into the civilian work sector as soon as I get out.**

**Second, I've also recently gotten into talks with some friends about starting our own fitness apparel business, nothing large, just a small business. It won't be my main job, as I plan on becoming a CNC operator when I get out, but it would be a nice side business.**

**Third, new goal is to find me a wife, because I realized I want kids some day.**

**Anyways, now to the story.**

**I do warn you, this chapter will be a bit more like the old crack fic. So bare with me.**

* * *

**Jem's POV**

"Alex, why did you invite me out to drink."

"You've been working so hard baby doll! You need to relax!" Alex said flamboyantly.

"Jesus Christ, why do you have to say shit like that, its creepy!" Seriously, there is no way Alex was straight.

If Jem didn't know any better, he would think that Alex was only dating his girlfriend because he was still in the closet and didn't want to come out. But then again, maybe he was just really feminine. But either way, he didn't give a fuck, he just wish that he would stop calling him weird shit that made him feel uncomfortable.

"See? You need to relax."

"Come on, calling another dude baby doll is weird."

"Oh hun, its an everyday thing with me." Jem just looked at him oddly.

"...How are you not gay?"

"Because I don't like dick silly!" Jem had his doubts about Alex.

He seriously had doubts.

"Anyways, why am I here again?"

"Well, me and my girlfriend are in a competition to find you a date?" At this Jem just groaned.

"Great, so now my life is just like some weird ass tv show where a bunch of sad lonely people get to watch me date someone to fulfill their own sad desperate feelings of wanting a relationship."

For some reason...that was specific as fuck.

"But what does that have to do with anything?" At this Alex huffed.

"Well, HUNNIE thought she found a good match for you, so shes bringing her here right now." Jem looked at Alex confused.

"...Why do you seem disappointed in that?"

"Because I found the perfect match for you, but she claims I should let her work her 'magic' first." Jem had to admit he was curious about what he said.

"And who is perfect for-"

"YOO HOO! Jem! Alex baby! We're here!" They say Alex's girlfriend, who for some reason didn't have a real name approach with some other girl.

Jem looked over the girl, she was wearing an orange and black leather jacket with a spiked goth gollar with black combat boots, dark jeans and a shirt with a black kitten on it. She had a pale complexion and black lipstick on. She was pretty petite, but as he looked her over, she did have a good amount of curves on her. Suddenly Jem didn't feel so bad about this. This didn't seem so bad.

"Hi Jem! This is my friend Melania from college!"

Melania waved as she hid her face with her baggy sleeve.

"She's a bit shy, but once you get to know her, she's fine." Alex's girlfriend said as Jem shrugged.

"Nice to meet you." He said as she nodded shy like.

"You too UwU." Jem all of a sudden was weirded out.

First that she said UwU, which he didn't even realize was a thing. And internally he started groaning. PLEEAASSEE say she wasn't a weeaboo. He hated weeaboos, with their stupid asses thinking Japan was just like anime and walking around in schoolgirl outfits all the time. Seriously, he met those idiots back in college, and all they did was piss off the japanese exchange students.

He liked anime, but for fucks sake, Weeaboos ruined it for everyone.

"Oh, sorry, thats something I do when I get nervous." She apologized as she knew that had to weird Jem out.

"Uh yeah, apology accepted." He honestly didn't know what to say to that.

"Sooooo Jemmy, where is Winter tonight?" Alex said already not liking this girl his hunnie had picked out.

"Eh, I don't know, I don't pay attention all the time." At this Hunnie gave a triumphant smirk to her boyfriend.

So far, her blind date was working out better than Alex's hopes for a Fire and Ice pairing.

"Well, forget about her! Why don't you and Melania discuss your interests together." At this they sat down at a table in the bar.

Honestly, Jem didn't have a lot of hope for this. She already set a weird ass tone for it by saying 'UwU' as if it was a real word. But at the same time, he didn't want to go home, one because this was his vacation from Winter and the girls, and two, because he figured this was better than being one of those losers who went home and jerked off to the weirdest porn they could find. Hell, Jem couldn't even watch porn anymore ever since someone told him if you watched porn, you were cucking yourself to a computer screen. So yeah, that completely killed any interest he had in it. Plus lets face it, there was some weird shit out there. He remembered one time someone pranked him with a video he thought was going to be a wholesome anime...instead it was a brutal tentacle hentai video.

Needless to say, he was certain that video was one of the reasons he was deathly afraid of squids or anything with tentacles.

Worst part of that was finding out that Tentacle porn was a thing the japanese thought of even back in the 1800s with that 'Dream of the fisherman's wife.'

You know...in some ways he was interested by Japanese culture...and other ways wondering what the fuck was wrong with them.

He looked over Melania, trying to figure out what to ask her.

"So, what are you into?"

"Well, I like anime, games, manga, art, and J pop." At this Jem realized this was not going to go well.

"How about you?"

"Well, I like the gym, and reading about the vikings, celts, romans, I'm a history buff." He said as she got excited.

"Oooh, do you know about Japanese history?" ...Damn it this was not going well.

"Nothing, just the basics, like a few random facts about the Mimizuka and shit." She looked confused at that.

"The what?"

Shit, he realized that was probably not the best topic to talk about when first meeting a girl. So he decided to let it go. Despite the fact he didn't have high hopes for this date, he still would make the effort to try and be civil, who knows, it might turn out alright.

"Sooo...you're pretty buff."

And just like that, she stroked his ego, and the date went 0 to 100 really fast.

"Yeesss, I do try and work out at least five days a week." He said as he playfully flexed his arms as she giggled.

At this Alex and his girlfriend had mixed reactions. He was pouting as he was worried his horse in the race would lose. While his girlfriend was smirking victoriously.

"See? Told you they would get along fine."

"The only reason she likes him is because of his muscles!" Alex pointed out.

"So? She has some strange fetishes, doesn't make her a bad person."

"Uhm, excuse me, Jem is not the kind for strange fetishes! He doesn't even watch porn because he considers it cuckoldry!" Alex pointed out as his girlfriend paused.

"...How do you know that?"

"Oh, he brought it up when he saw some geeks at the comic book store lusting over a picture of Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn." Alex said as his girlfriend was even more confused.

"Wait, you two hang out outside of the gym?"

"Occassionally, he brings me along when he runs errands and tries to teach me to be more masculine, while I try to teach him how to dress!" Alex giggled.

To be fair, his girlfriend completely understood why people thought her boyfriend was gay. Because even she thought so at first. He did seem to have a lot more feminine qualities than one would imagine.

"Look, all I'm saying is I got a bad feeling about this girl." Alex said as his girlfriend smirked and looked at him.

"You were saying?" She asked as she saw Jem was leaving with Melania.

"Oof." Alex said as this was not boding well for his 'Winter hugs and snugz' pairing.

* * *

**An Hour later**

"Uhm, don't you think this is going a little fast." Jem said as he was pinned up against the wall by Melania as she tore his shirt off and forced her lips onto his.

"Oh come on baby, we all need a little release every now and then." SHe said as she unbottoned one of her shirt buttons.

Okay, Jem would be honest, he wasn't one for hookups. And more importantly, he still wasn't sure about this whole situation. As soon as he walked into her house, it was covered in anime posters and sailor moon memoribilia. Now, he liked geeky girls as much as the next guy. But there was a difference with liking something and being obsessed with something.

Melania led him to the bedroom where she pushed him onto her bed and crawled on top of him, pushing her legs against the sides of his torso as she straddled his waist.

"Come on, you said it yourself you thought I was pretty." She smirked as he noticed she was wearing those hot topic fake vampire teeth.

"Uh yeah...I do have a thing for goths." He said as she smirked.

"Thats good." She said as she leaned forward, her breasts getting closer and closer to his face.

Again Jem was having a moral dilemma, he didn't want to be one of those guys who has one night stands, but then again, he also REALLY didn't want to pass up an oppurtunity like this.

CLICK!

Wait what the fuck?

Jem was so distracted by her boobs being so close to his face that he didn't notice she placed his hands above his head and clipped them to her bed post.

"Wait, no." He said as he didn't like where this was going.

"Oh please, just a bit of harmless fun." She said as he looked up.

"...These are legit handcuffs!" He yelled as he was panicking a bit.

"Uh huh, I work as a corrections officer!" She said as she stood up and got up.

"Now let me go get properly dressedd." She said as she got up and stripped out of her jeans and normal clothes.

"..." Jem at this point was both scared and curious.

On one hand, he could deal with some light bondage, as long as she didnt get into that weird WEIRD shit. But he was a bit worried when she said 'Get properly dressed' Oh god, what if she was a dominatrix? Pllleaassse don't let that be the case.

In panic he looked up at the handcuffs, the bed post she had him attached to was made of wood, but he wasn't sure how thick it was. So this was not good.

"I'm back!" She yelled as Jem looked up.

And his heresy levels went off the charts.

He saw Melania standing there, she was wearing a big tiger fur suit head on her head. Her body was still visible, and Jem coudl see the tiger striped theme lingerie she had picked out, along with the high heels, but that didn't matter, because the fur suit head was ruining everything, but what was even worse was what he saw her holding.

"This is just your size!" She said as she held up another fur suit head.

This one was a wolf head.

"OOOOOHHHH HEEELLLLLLLLLL NOOOOOOOOO!"

Jem had to get out of here!"


	18. Melting Ice

**Well, that was a thing, So I decided to write this chapter right away because I needed something to do before I went to teh gym today. So here we go.  
**

* * *

**Meanwhile back at the motorhome**

Winter had finished her daily cleaning and purification of the motorhome. Frankly, she still couldn't believe Jem could handle living in a space where she could do a white glove inspection and find a speck of dust. It really bothered her how dirty things could be! Granted Jem tried to tell her that dust was a normal thing and as long as it didn't look like a bag of smashed assholes, everything was fine.

She really wish he didn't use such vulgar language, but she still couldn't stand to live in an area where it was so dusty. But the point was she finished her cleaning for the day, and she sat back in a chair and decided to read. Only problem was she had already read through Jem's rather extensive book collection.

Masters of the sea books? Read them.

Lord of the rings? Read them.

History books? Read them

The Way of Men? Read it.

Hell she had read everything Jem had in his personal collection.

KNOCK KNOCK!

"Who is it?" Winter asked as she wasn't expecting visitors.

"Its Grandmama!" At this Winter smiled.

While she did think this family was a bit too rural for her tastes, Grandmama was a lovely human being. So Winter got up and answered the door.

"And what brings you by tonight?" She asked as she saw Grandmama had a box for her.

"Well, I figured you would enjoy some fresh baked cookies, and I also brought you some more books to read! I know you've run out, you're a fast reader." She said as Winter couldn't help but smile.

Jem's Grandmother was such a wholesome woman. It was almost like she knew exactly what you needed before you even said anything. Winter often wondered what her own grandmother would be like if she was like Grandmama, but she shook the thoughts from her head, there was no sense in dwelling on the past when there was no way to change it. Either way she happily took the box full of books and the tray full of cookies.

She reached into the fridge and pulled out some milk, poured the milk into a wine glass, and then set the plate of cookies on the nightstand right next to the chair she was reading in. She looked over the selection of books Grandmama brought for her and she felt her heart sink a bit.

"They're all romance novels..." She said with disappointment as she sighed.

Winter didn't hate romance, on the contrary she loved romance novels, but they also made her sad for one big reason. She was reminded she didn't have a lover. Some would find this surprising, but the Atlesian Specialist had trouble finding love. It wasn't that she lacked confidence or beauty, it was because she couldn't find a man who didn't want to date her for ulterior motives, it was sad, but there were many who saw the Schnee family name and simply wanted to marry into the wealth of the family. And sadly, there were too many who did that to her in the past that she found herself giving up on romance entirely. But she was still a woman and she still had needs.

Sadly, all she could do was read romance novels, they were her only outlet, and while she enjoyed them, she also disliked them because they reminded her of something she could never have.

But, with that in mind, she decided she needed to read something in order to take her mind off of something, so she picked up a random title and began reading.

_The Countess and the Farmer  
_

An odd title she would admit. How the heck would a countess and a farmer meet.

But she decided to give it a shot, and she started to enjoy it.

The story told of a wealthy countess who was currently on the run, due to rivalries between other royal houses and landowners, there was an bounty put out on her head in order to take her out so the other rich barons could take her land without having to buy it. After all, she had no heirs, and no other family, so her estate would be divided amongst the other wealthy landowners of the area. But not willing to be taken out so easily. She went into hiding, and sadly since nobody could provide proof of death, and the countess herself had made it look like she was going on an extended vacation, the barons could not get to her.

But the problem was, her original plan was to go far away until she could amass an army in order to defend her, or at the very least a group of cut throats. But sadly, a pack of bandits ruined her plans, and she found herself running to a farm, where a young farmer fresh out of service for the Legion gave her shelter, not knowing her true identity. And sadly, she was made to work for a living and a place to stay.

But that was not the part that interested Winter, it was the part she was reading now.

_He pushed her against the wall, leaving trails of kisses down her neck as he tore her corset of, leaving her chest exposed to the world._

Winter slammed the book shut and blushed as she realized this book was a bit more...hot and heavy than she was used to. She calmed down and collected herself as she realized Grandmama must have accidentally given her some more erotic books without her knowing. But...the book itself wasn't bad, and it wasn't like it was too graphic, so she opened the book back up to where she was.

_The countess had never experienced such pleasure before, while often she had to take care of her own needs, she had never been touched by a man before, the feeling of his hot breath on her neck, the feeling of his hands enveloping her breasts firmly as he carried her over to the bed._

Again Winter was blushing, she couldn't believe she was still reading this, but she couldn't stop herself. She crossed her legs as she composed herself and continued to read on.

_Her hands grasped the farmers head as he thrusted her tongue in and out of her womanhood._

Again she slammed the book closed, AGAIN she was not expecting this book to get so graphic. Most of the romance novels she read never got into this, and she didn't know how she felt about it.

The author may have to change this to M rating just to be sure it doesn't get him in trouble.

Again, she opened the book, eager to read more

_"Are you sure?" The farmer asked as the countess gave a nod._

_She wasn't more sure about anything in her life._

_He grasped her legs by the ankles and spread them far out past his shoulders as she felt the tip of him prod her entrance and-_

**BANG BANG BANG  
**

"LET ME IN!"

"AH!" Winter cried as she threw the book away as her blush was going crazy as she heard Jem yelling.

"LEEEETTTTTT MEEEE IN!" He yelled again as Winter huffed in exaspseration.

"Ugh, of all the times you had to co-" She opened the door and her blush intensified.

Standing there was an extremelly toned, muscular...and very naked Jem, with the only sign of anything being on his body were his Mjolnir pendant, his phone and wallet which he had clutched in his hands, and a pair of handcuffs.

Wait...handcuffs?

"OUT OF MY WAY!" Jem yelled as he brushed past Winter. Her hand inadvertantly brushing against his rock hard abs.

She blushed as he ran into his bedroom of the motorhome.

Give it a second.

1...2...3...4...5...

"WHY ARE YOU NAKED?!" She yelled as she suddenly realized something was off.

"Now is not the time Winter!" Jem yelled as he was trying to get the handcuffs out.

"It is the time! Why were you running around naked when its -4 degrees outside Why are you handcuffed? And what happened to you?!" She yelled as she couldn't believe this.

She knew the enlisted men got into some weird shit but this was taking the cake.

"Never mind that!" He said as he got the handcuffs off.

"Oh thank the gods." He said as he laid down in his bed not even bothering to put on clothes.

"I demand an explana-" Winter froze as she saw Jem sprawled out naked on his bed.

And suddenly she was going over all the intricacies of his muscles from when he worked out at the gym. She traced the abs he had with her eyes as she noticed that he had a perfectly defined V cut, his pecs were just perfectly sized, not too big, and not too small. She looked over his tattoos only adding to the complexity as they contrasted greatly with his pale skin, letting her know what was what. Even his thigh muscles were well defined almost as if he had sprinted the whole way home, as if the muscles twitching was any indicator. But soon she found herself looking over and noticing that in the middle of it all was a decently sized...

Jem threw a blanket over himself as soon as he realized Winter was in the room.

"Winter! What the hell? Knock first!" He yelled as Winter had an atomic blush going on as she realized something.

Was she seriously staring at Jem's body like that? She wanted to be mad and yell at him for it, but it wasn't his fault! She was the one eye fucking him! And frankly, it was awkward as shit!

He seemed completely oblivious to the fact that she had just been staring at him like that though.

"I...I just wanted to know what happened..." She said as her voice was a bit more subdued.

"You want to know what happened? I'll tell you what happened! I thought I met a nice girl! And turns out she's some weird ass furry!" Winter wasn't quite sure what that was, but Jem was venting.

"On top of that, she cut off my favorite pair of jeans, and stole my silk underwear!" Jem was ranting on and on, and Winter was just listening.

"I told her to stop, but she wouldn't! She just said I would learn to like it! She tried to put the wolf head on me, and thats when I broke her bedpost, and ran away as fast as I could, do you have any idea how hard it is to run butt ass naked in the snow for at least two miles! I had to keep sprinting! One because we took her car back, and two, because if I slowed down, it would just get even more cold, so I had to keep running to stay warm!" Jem said as he collapsed back in exasperation as Winter was stunned.

"...You wear silk underwear?" She said weakly.

"THATS WHAT YOU TOOK FROM THAT?!"

Winter snapped out of it as she realized the whole situation and she left the room, and slammed the door shut.

"Ugh! Screw this I'm going to bed!" Winter heard Jem's head hit the pillow and she blushed as she realized he didn't even bother to put clothes on.

But then a horrible thought entered her head.

"Oh Oum, I did not just think he looked hot, oh oum no." She said as this was not good.

She looked over to the book she had thrown and glared at it.

It was that stupid book! It was messing with her brain! The only reason she found Jem sexy there was because she was reading that...that...FILTH.

She walked back to her chair and grabbed the book. She glared at it as she realized it was the cause for her acting that way about a minute ago.

She put it in the nightstand drawer, huffed and picked up a random magazine.

Only to discover it was a muscle and fitness magazine and was not helping her get her mind off of Jem's muscles.

"UGH!" She went over to her makeshift bed and decided to call it a night.

She would feel better in the morning.


	19. Morning Thoughts

**Well, here we go, another chapter, to be honest, I've been trying to write more stuff for Endless Possibilities, but honestly Im so tired of that story, its getting boring to write. So I've been taking a long hiatus from that. Right now, trying to write more for Screaming Eagle, but the issue with that is I started it when I was still super hooah about the army. Now that I've been a bit longer, its like 'Ugh, fucking new guy motivation pisses me off.'**

**On top of that, apparently my Chain of command in its INFINITE wisdom, decided we're going to do a 12 mile ruck march, two days before the field, and about a week before a 22 mile ruck march...doesn't make sense does it?**

* * *

**Winters POV**

_**"But I shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die."**_Winter woke up as she heard music playing and realized Jem must have been cooking breakfast.

Things had gone back to normal after she had gotten the image of Jem's naked body out of her head, she was thankful she didn't see the more intimate parts of him. But still she couldn't believe she had actually found him attractive. She admitted he was decent looking in the face for a man, the beard really helped a lot, she had seen a picture of him when he was clean shaven, and she frankly wasn't a fan. That being said it had been an awkward night for a bit, she had dreams about the countess and the farmer, but she was replaced with the counttess and Jem had been replaced with the Farmer. Needless to say she woke up screaming in disgust. In which case, Jem got pissed and threw a pillow at her for interrupting his sleep.

Shaking her head of those thoughts, she was glad that his naked body wasn't weighing too much on her, at this point she had begrudingly admitted that he took exercise seriously, even if his diet consisted of an unhealthy amount of bacon and eggs for breakfast. Stretching her arms out from her makeshift twin size bed, she rubbed the sleep from her eyes as she put on a plain white t shirt she had stolen from Jem, she had to end up borrowing some of his clothes because when last time they went shopping he was certain she tried to make him go broke. So he only bought her three outfits, and the rest she had to borrow.

She went to a drawer and picked out some knee high socks as well as a pair of skinny jeans. Putting it all on, she figured she was decent enough to be seen in the morning.

Only to walk into the kitchen area and see Jem cooking with his shirt off, in ranger panties and a MAGA hat.

"JEM!" She yelled as she turned around embarrassed to see him like that.

"What?" He said not seeing the problem.

"Could you put some more clothes on?!" She said blushing as she remembered the dreams she had last night.

"Geez, hang on." He said as he walked over to his clothes pile and bent over to grab some shirts.

SHe had turned around slightly only to see what he was doing, and immediately turned back around.

SNIFF

"Dirty."

SNIFF

"Dirty."

SNIFF

"Here we go, its clean."

She was horrified as she realized what he was doing.

"Did you seriously just sniff your clothes to see if they were clean?"

"Well yeah, I don't want to smell like sweaty nutsack."

"LANGUAGE!"

"1st Amendment." He said as she rolled her eyes.

She completely forgot he was like this.

"Have you no sense of decency?"

"Of course I do, but considering I cook you breakfast, shelter you, you don't pay rent, and I've also been paying for your expensive shakes at smoothie king, I think I've earned the right to dress how I want in my own house!"

"Its a motorhome."

"The point still stands!" He said as Winter groaned.

"Fine! But at least keep a shirt on!" Jem shrugged and figured that was reasonable.

They ate breakfast rather quietly, Jem was reading 'Alexander, God of War' while drinking his coffee. And Winter while tempted to read more of the countess and the farmer had settled for reading a bit from the count of monte cristo. Last thing she needed to be doing was reading an erotic novel when he was around, that would be too awkward, especially after the dream she had last night. She looked over at him, just not caring about anything, and not knowing just how much he bothered her last night. Not that she would EVER let him know, because she got the feeling he would be a smart ass about it, and that pissed her off.

"Hey, want my sausage?" That knocked her out of her thougths.

"WHAT?!" She blushed in embarassment as she looked up.

Only to see he was holding a sausage out with his fork.

"My sausage, I made a bit too many, and you look like you could use a bit more sausage." He said pointing to her plate which didn't have nearly enough food.

"...I'm fine thank you." She said ignoring the obvious innuendo he didn't even realize he was teasing her with.

"Suit yourself, how about some nuts?" She choked on her coffee.

"Excuse me?!" She looked up again only to see him offering her a bowl of mixed nuts.

"You know, some nuts." Okay, he had to be doing this on purpose!

"I'm fine, again, thank you for offering."

He shrugged his shoulders as he put the nuts down. She decided to just relax, he obviously didn't know what he was doing, and its not like he could say anything worse.

"Damn, look, a pair of great tits." Now that pissed her off.

"EXCUSE ME?!" She said folding her arms across her chest as glared at him as he was staring out the window.

"I'm a lady and will not tolerate this kind of vulga-" She noticed he wasn't even looking at her, nor did he seem to be paying attention.

"Hm? Oh sorry, you say something?" He said as he looked back and noticed she seemed pissed.

She just glared at him in response.

"What? I was just looking at the pair of great tits outside the window." He said pointing to a tree outside.

Confused but still angry, Winter looked outside, only to see Jem pointed out at two birds.

"See? Two great tits, which is funny because you don't usually see those over here in the US, at least not naturally anyways." Winter wanted to deadpan and slap him at the same time.

That was three innuendos in one conversation, and yet none of them were actually sexual in nature. More importantly, whose bright idea was it to name a bird a great tit? She was starting to wonder if most of the scientists in charge of naming animals in this world were smoking crack.

"Ah look at that cute little ass." She whipped her head to look at Jem knowing that she had to have caught him this time.

She had been bending over to look outside the window, there was no way he was getting away with it this time and-

"See?" He said as he pulled up a video of a baby donkey playing in a puddle.

"Its so cute!" He said as Winter again couldn't believe this was real.

In the words of Jem, it was almost like the gods were fucking with her. So she did the reasonable course of action, she threw on an a jacket, and she got ready to go for a walk.

"Where you going?" He asked as she looked back.

"I'm going for a walk!"

"Its like zero degrees out there."

"I don't care!" She yelled as she slammed the door.

"Geez, what got into her?" Jem asked as she seemed awfully bothered today.

* * *

**Meanwhile at Melania's house**

Melania woke up with a yawn. Last night had been fun, she had almost gotten a guy to wear the fur suit head she had, sadly he broke out of her house before she could go any further. She knew her tastes were unusual, but most of the guys she brought home ending up giving in too easily, and it kind of ruined the experience for her, this one however was different, he actively fought against her, and she had to admit, when she broke out of his restraints and threw her onto the bed so he could run away, she would be lying if she said she wasn't turned on.

Sure, he obviously wasn't a furry, and even seemed terrified of the idea of being one, but she smirked. Because she was certain if she had just ridden him like a horse all night, he would be wearing that wolf head no problem. Only issue was how to find him again? She chuckled as she felt a wetness overcome her.

"Hmmm, Jeremiah...well, I'll certainly have to keep an eye on you." Melania said as she would certainly have to keep tabs on him.

No matter what.

HE...WOULD...BE...HERS.


	20. Winter FrustrationAlex Salvation

**Hey everyone, I'm counting down the days for when I get out of the army, down to ten months now. Right now trying to get into some job training on base so I can get out of my unit for three months to do civilian job training, and then after I'm done I can go ahead and take terminal leave and get the hell out, have a job set up for me when I leave, and then take a nice big vacation. Well that is after we get done with this Coronavirus bullshit, its really fucking up my chances of getting out with a job ready to go, and I might end up either reenlisting or reclassing.  
**

**Anyways, for those who think I'm getting out because I suddenly hate the military, thats bullshit, I enlisted, I did my part, decided I wanted to try something new, and I'm getting out, and the military has actually helped set me up for future success. My student loans are about to be wiped out, I have more money than I ever did, I know a lot more about savings, and the best part is I'm in much better shape and have more tattoos than I ever did. **

**Its not for everyone, but it can help you if you let it. But if theres any future advice I can give to anyone who's joining no matter what branch, don't go combat arms UNLESS you want to fight. Otherwise you're wasting time and training. **

* * *

**At the motorhome**

Jem was glad it was the weekend, this week had been full of a ton of BS, from that weird ass furry who tried to force him to wear that stupid wolfs head. To Winter acting like a weirdo all week, and Ruby trying to modify his motorcycle. It had been a bit odd. So now he was in the backyard shooting targets as well as some clay pigeons. His shotgun skills surprisingly sucked for someone who grew up in the country. But what could he say, he was better with a rifle and a pistol.

"Do you mind?! I'm trying to sleep!" Winter yelled from the motorhome.

"You got plenty of sleep! Let me have my fun!" Jem said as Winter grumbled.

The truth was she hadn't slept as well as she hoped because she kept having those stupid dreams about the farmer and the countess. She had finally finished the book, and she had to admit it was actually nice despite the. gratuitous amounts of smut. She also came across a book called 50 shades of grey, but she found it so bad and poorly written that she burned it.

She wasn't even that attracted to Jem! She knew the only reason her brain made that connection to him was because he interrupted her when she got to a hot and heavy part of the book and that she wasn't actually attracted to him. For fucks sake, the man was too much of a rough neck for her. Especially since he had that Viking or barbarian vibe to him with the tattoos and the beard.

So what if he was fit? He was still an idiot!

"Some of us would rather not have a peaceful sunday interrupted by gunfire!" She said as she walked outside to see Jem loading another magazine into his Glock 19.

"And some of us find it soothing." He said as he shot at a target of Che Guevara.

"But tell you what? If you can beat me in a shooting match, I'll stop."

Winter was about to accept his challenge, but then she thought it over. And for some reason she got a really bad feeling.

"I'm going to go talk with Weiss." She grumbled as Jem looked confused.

"Huh odd, wonder why she refused? It's not like I have some mega weapon hidden away." He shrugged and went back to what he was doing.

This time shooting at a target that had Karl Marx on it.

**With the others**

"Weiss, have you noticed your sister seems...well..." Yang tried to think of a way to say it nice.

"Stressed?"

"Well, if you call that constipated look stressed than yeah." Ruby said having no filter.

"...I was trying to be tactful about it Ruby."

"Sorry."

"I'm sure she's just adjusting to this world, after all, she likes organization and order as you all very well know." Everyone groaned at that.

"Yeah considering how she printed out itinerary for our mission, Ugh." Nora still had no idea how she managed to get those printed out so quick.

"Look, I'm sure that once she adjusts to this place a bit more she'll-"

SLAM!

Winter slammed the door open as she immediately headed to the bathroom.

"Oh, hello Winter how are you-"

"Can't talk! Need cold shower!" She said as she headed to the bathroom.

"But Winter it-"

SLAM

"...Why would she need a cold shower?" Weiss asked as Yang and Blake felt a lightbulb go off in their heads.

"...NO way..." They said as they both looked outside.

Only to see Jem had taken his shirt off and was only dressed in a pair of american flag ranger panties as well as sunglasses, and was letting the sun's rays highlight his pale skin, which seemed to make him glow, while some would find that concerning and would require some sun tan lotion, it was almost like Winter, she was pale as hell, and her skin resembled snow. Jem however had the multiple tattoos breaking up the pale parts of the skin, so you could see muscle definition despite the sunlight reflecting off his ivory skin. It was like looking at a very pale Uruk Hai.

"Oh wow, I mean, he's not my type, but he's pretty cut." Yang said as Pyrrha came by sipping coffee.

"I prefer a more streamlined physique." She said as she remembered how Jaune looked shirtless now.

"Wait...you don't think..." Blake said as Yang got an evil grin on her face.

"Hey Weiss! I think your sister is crushing on our landlord!"

Weiss had only one thing to say.

"SHUT...THE...FUCK...UP..." Pyrrha nearly dropped her coffee when she heard that escape from Weiss's mouth.

Weiss had never dropped the F bomb before, it was actually kind of scary. Nobody had ever use Weiss use that kind of language, mostly because despite her hanging out with them, she always tried to maintain a professional attitude towards curse words and insults. I mean shit, back when they met Sun, she even used 'Rapscallion' who in their right mind who wasn't above the age of fifty even used that insult anymore?

"Hey isn't that Jem's gay friend?" Suddenly everyone was looking outside.

Only to see Alex wearing a tanktop that said "Pretty Pretty Princess" As well as a pair of neon yellow short shorts.

"Nah, he's not gay, he has a girlfriend."

"...He's wearing a t shirt that says pretty pretty princess, and he looks like the personification of the 'Traps aren't gay' meme." Yang said as Blake grumbled.

"Traps aren't gay."

Those two would never settle that argument.

"Come on! Look at the way he's quivering in delight at seeing Jem shirtless and in ranger panties!" Yang said as the camera zoomed in to Jem and Alex.

"Jemmy, I'm scared!" Alex said quivering in fear.

"For fucks sake Alex, its a .22!"

"I've never shot a gun!"

"Ugh, fine watch this."

With that, Jem took his AR-15, put the buttstock against his dick, and started to fire off multiple rounds.

BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG

Needless to say, all parties were confused as to what was going on.

Team RWBY and JNPR thought they were watching some weird ass tv show and were expecting Ashton Kutcher to pop out at any moment saying they had been Punkd. Alex was wondering why Jem had the rifle against his dick, and Winter was desperately trying to make the water colder to get the thought of Jem's body out of her head.

"...Look, .22 has no recoil, and what I just used uses 5.56, and as you can tell, the recoil of the rifle was not hurting my dick at all." Jem learned that trick from watching Angry Cops.

You know it was amazing how much a comedy channel on youtube could do to help newbies get over their fear of guns.

"Okay..." Alex said picking up the little .22 revolver.

BANG

And squeezed off his first shot.

"Tee hee." Alex gave our a girlish grin as Jem sighed.

"Okay now."

"EAT LEAD MUDDAFUCKA!" Alex said as he suddenly started to shoot like a crazy person.

And Jem...while slightly surprised at his effeminate friend, couldn't help but also be proud of him in a way.

Now if only they could get him to stop dressing so damn effeminate.

Look it wasn't that Jem had a problem with the way people dressed, as long as they weren't a total choch about it. What he did have a problem with was everytime Alex's girlfriend left them alone, people assumed they were a gay couple, and said he was obviously the top. Which to be honest, if they were gay, then yeah obviously Jem would be butch, but thats beside the point. He swore to god that Alex's girlfriend did that on purpose just to mess with him.

What made it even worse, was for some reason, Alex was really affectionate, and one time when Jem paid for his smoothie, Alex hugged his arm...again, he was certain those two had a conspiracy against him.

And...in a way he was right. Because Alex had his evil plan in his head.

_"The more that Winter seems how sensitive he is to me despite me being the fact that I'm obviously doing stuff that makes him uncomfortable will help Winter show that he can tolerate a lot of bullshit, the kind of bullshit that Winter will most likely dish out due to her more strict lifestyle. However, as Jem gets used to dealing with the uncomfortable situations I put him in, he'll be more resistant to Winter's more annoying qualities, and will be willing to show his dominance, which in turn will also turn her on, because lets face it, that girl may pass herself off as a no nonsense ball breaker, but in reality all she wants is for someone to push her up against the wall, rip her clothes off and-"_

"Alex! Wake up!" Jem's voice snapped him back to reality.

"Oh? What happened?"

"Your girlfriend is here to pick you up." Jem pointed over to Alex's girlfriend who was wearing a matching outfit.

"Oh! Thats right! Well, we're still doing leg day at the gym right?" Alex said as Jem nodded.

"Yeah, but please for the love of god, stop moaning while doing squats." Jem said as Alex giggled.

"Nope!"

With that he skipped over to his girlfriends car.

"Why are you smiling?" His girlfriend asked.

"Because your plan failed! And now Operation 'Winter hugs n snugz' Is underway!"

"How do you know my plan failed? Melania called me saying she can't wait to see him again."

"Well, Jem told me that Melania handcuffed him to a bed and tried to rape him while wearing a furry head."

"...I'm sure he's exaggerating."

"But Melania is a furry."

"Well...yeah, but I doubt she would bring that out on the first date, and come on, that story is unbelievable."

"Why? Because it was a man as the victim?"

"No, because how the hell did he escape if she handcuffed him?"

"Never underestimate the power of a man who hates furries."


	21. Why is Life so weird?

**Okay, So gym on base is closed down, so kind of mad about that, but luckily I can improvise until they open them back up. All I know is right now, all I want to do is get out of the army. Granted again, that may not be the wisest decision if this all continues to go on, but we'll see.**

**Corona just HAD to hit when I'm trying to get out didn't it? But there is good news,I pretty much got a free vacation off of work, so thats kind of nice. Even if we can't really do anything.  
**

**Only thing I know for sure is, I'm gonna keep writing a bit more, and going to keep building up a plan for getting out.**

* * *

**Winter**

"I don't know if I can deal with this much longer." Winter was honestly going crazy.

Since she had been here, she hadn't been working, she had been exercising, but she needed something else to do. On top of that, Jem would still occasionally dress like a homoerotic soldier while shooting guns and would refuse to stop because 'this is a free country damn it'. And if she tried to make him stop he would just call her the King George of party pooping. And on top of that, those damn visions of the farmer and the countess would not leave her alone. And the fact that Jem dressed like that, he was just asking for it! But again, she maintaned that she wasn't attracted to him, the only reason she was having those dreams was because of a few reasons.

1\. She was still a virgin.

2\. She had not been on a date in a long time.

3\. She had read a smut book she enjoyed.

4\. She had seen Jem naked as she was reading the book which means her brain made the association between the two and she couldn't stop it.

But now she was going to try to get a good nights sleep, she had already taken some calming tea, as well as some lavender extract, and she was certain that for the first time in a long time, she was going to get some sleep.

_IN DREAM WORLD_

_Winter was laying on a bed of furs, she had no idea how she had gotten there. All she knew was that she wasn't wearing any clothes. She got up to look around seeing the multiple bones with runes carved into them scattered around the tent. She saw a piece of broken glass that she assumed one would use as a mirror if there was nothing else. She looked in it and saw that the only thing she had on was some silver necklace with a blue sapphire as well as multiple rings around her hands made to look like small serpents biting their own tails._

_"Woman..." She heard a low gruff voice as she turned around._

_She saw a man whose face was covered by a wolf headdress, with a red beard, with a defined physique and tattoos she couldn't quite place._

_"Woman! Here! Now!" He said roughly as normally Winter would be offended._

_And yet she found herself walking forward almost as if she was being compelled to._

_She felt a shiver go through her body as the man stood up, his face being hidden by the wolf headdress and the shadows as he walked around her and inspected her, his fingers brushing against her skin sending jolts up her spine every now and then as for some reason her breathing got heavier. Suddenly the man was in front of her, and he picked her up._

_By instinct she wrapped her legs around him as he pushed her up against the wall of the cabin they were in._

_She looked in the mans eyes, those fierce blue eyes being the only thing she could see of his face._

_She felt something prodding at her between the legs and looked down to see something, only to blush and look away._

_She felt the prodding again, only for it to feel warmer, and realized what the man was trying to do. She blushed and yet she didn't stop. Instead she gripped his shoulders as if she was preparing for something._

_Looking back at his face one last time, she ripped the wolf headdress off._

_ONly to see the face of Jem looking right back at her._

_Undeterred, he thr-_

**Back to reality**

"AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!" She woke up screaming with one hand flailing in the air.

Wait one hand?

Horrified she looked down only to see where her other hand had been.

"NO!" She exclaimed as she brought her hand back up.

BANG!

Jem kicked down the door to her room of the motorhome, he was dressed in a pair of ranger panties again, but this time brandishing his Glock 19.

"WHATS GOING ON?! We got Jehovahs?!" He yelled as he was still slightly drunk from having a few cold ones with the boys.

"NO! JUST GET OUT!" She yelled as she threw a pillow at him.

"Ow! Damn it! Geez, what I get for trying to help." He said as he walked back over to the couch and went back to sleep, his glock at his side.

Winter groaned as she fell back with her hands covering her face, don't worry she wiped off her hands before she put them up to her face. But she still couldn't believe it. Not only did she have that dream, but on top of it, she also did...did...THAT! Why?

More importantly, she literally just had that conversation with herself with how she wasn't into men who looked like barbarians, so why was she having these dreams?

"Ugh, its not like he's THAT attractive." Winter said out loud.

But then she froze again, she just said 'That' which means on some level, she did find him attractive. She shook her head trying to deny it, but...he did have a certain charm to him. As annoying as it was. He did seem to grow on you after awhile. Like a tumor, an annoying, stupid, big headed Tumor, but he grew on you never the less.

She looked into the living room of hte motorhome really quick and saw he was passed out face down. His back was looking quite toned and muscular, but going back and seeing that he was still wearing the ranger panties helped her realized that he did indeed have a nice as-

Again she shook her thoughts of that. She was a Speciailist in the Atlesian army! She was not a pervert who got off on looking at men like that!

Course, the thing is, during all her time in the Atlesian military. They taught her to prepare for everything. What they didn't each however was dealing with a man who was confident enough to rock Ranger panties. Especially since they didn't exist in her world. Well...at least not for men. The point was she needed to do something about this problem before it got even worse. I mean how hard could it be to ignore-

"Uggghhh." Jem rolled over on his side revealing his chest and abs for everyone to see.

"..." Winter didn't say a word as she turned away and went straight back to bed.

_"You won't break me!"_She said as she went right back to sleep.

Damn those ranger panties, they would not get to her!

**The Next Day**

Winter smirked in victory, she had forced Jem to put on a pair of pants and a shirt! Well, okay she hadn't forced him into it, turns out he was just in the mood for wearing more clothes today. Course, it also may have had to do with the fact he had to work today.

"Okay Winter, I got to work today, so make sure to tidy up the place a bit while I'm gone." She should have felt insulted, but they had come to an agreement that she needed to pull her own weight around here.

Especially after Jem had gotten the credit card bill from her expensive shakes at smoothie king.

"Fine." She grumbled as he left and she got to work.

Luckily Jem was clean enough, its just that it was more organized clutter, so she got to work with making the clutter seem less cluttered. She also did some basic stuff like wiping down the kitchen counters as well as checking to make sure no laundry needed to be done. It felt weird for her to be doing these chores, after all it felt like something a housewife would do, and she never saw herself in that role. Especially since it wasn't even a house, it was technically a trailer. Which Jem seemed awfully content with, she had asked him once why he didn't mind living in a motorhome, and he always said it was to save money, and also because he didn't want to buy a big house right away, which is why he bought this old hunk of junk, but right now it was looking nicer and nicer. Granted, they still had to do laundry in the actual house, but it wasn't a bad place to live. Jem had told her multiple times how his dream was to eventually get a cabin style home out closer to nature with its own gym setup. She couldn't quite understand that, after all she grew up in a mansion where the city was right outside, so to her, living away from the city was bizarre.

"Why are these socks so stiff?" She asked as for some reason they felt kind of stiff and crusty.

Thinking nothing of it, she picked them up and threw them in the laundry basket.

The point was, she didn't really connect with Jem on a lot of things, so she was confused as to why she was having so many erotic dreams about him.

Sighing, she just went right back to work. She would think about it later.

**Jem at Work**

Jem had just finished a workout, and like all gym goers and douchebags was taking a selfie in the mirror. He didn't care if people thought he was a doucher for posting selfies for Instagram, it was fun. Only problem was occasionally Alex would comment on his photos.

It wasn't the fact that Alex complimented his physique that was the problem. It was the fact that Alexander's instagram username was 'BigDickTraptemptation' And for fucks sake, Jem didn't know why the fuck he picked that one. How Alex was not gay he didn't know. Granted, he heard Blake and Yang argue over it mostly because of the age old 'Are Traps Gay' argument.

Jem didn't even want to go into that argument because he saw how serious those two took it for some odd reason.

_"No, its not gay, because you like them because they look like women! How can it be gay if you think they're a woman?!"_

He was certain that was one of the main reasons he had started to drink a bit more since they got here, while they took their lives seriously for the most part, every now and then something completely random and completely out of the fucking park would happen, and it would devolve into a mass of degenerate arguing and bad 4chan arguments. He didn't know why, he just hoped he wasn't around to hear it.

At least JNPR was mostly normal. Well, as normal as they could be. Pyrrha and Jaune had been off doing their own thing. Ren had been enjoying the relative peace and quiet of living in the countryside. And Nora was...Nora was too busy hanging out with Grandmama. Overall, life wasn't so bad.

"Ooohhhhhh its so tight!" Alex's voice moaned as Jem groaned.

"Damn it! Why do you got to make it weird!" Jema asked as he turned to look at Alex who was doing lying hamstring curls while his girlfriend cheered him on.

"But its true! All the blood is flowing in, and its just making everything feel tight!" Alex said as he rubbed his eyes in annoyance.

"Damn it Alex! You are ruining the pump for me!"

"Well excuse me honey, but Arnold himself said it felt like cumming, thats gayer than anything I can say." Jem glared at him.

"Hush your mouth boy! Do not speak of the great one like that!"

"I don't know, a man posing with a bunch of other nearly naked men on a stage rubbing each other down with baby oil? Pretty sure the jokes write themselves." He knew Alex was just doing this to mess with him.

"...Shut Up Alex."

Alex meanwhile was smirking on the inside, he was getting Jem good and irritated, and now he was going to move in for the kill.

"Oh speaking of which, my girlfriend said Melania called, she's really looking forward to seeing you a-"

"FUCK NO!" Jem's anger snapped as he walked into the sauna.

Alex smiled as he knew his plan worked. He was slowly agitating Jem to the point where all it would take would be one big thing to send him off the edge. Why did he do this? Well, because his girlfriend was convinced that Melania was still a good match for Jem despite the fact that everything Jem hated about the world was personified by her. So Alex slowly built up his anger, and let the bomb drop with Melania, that way, he would associate her on a mental level with a being that only caused him annoyance. In return he would most likely seek refuge with someone else for comfort. Namely Winter.

There was just one problem, Alex wasn't sure what to do that could get Winter and Jem to mutually bond.

Ugh, why couldn't Jem had an adoptive daughter or someone that Winter could just dote over?

That would make things so much easier.


	22. The Lion, The Bitch, and the Hormones

**Okay, So here I am writing again, because honestly I'm bored, now that the gym is gone, I don't have a lot to do. Or at the very least my routine has been disrupted to the point where its too weird. I've been doing everything I can to get a decent workout in. But damn you never realize how much you miss the gym until its gone.**

**Plus I asked this girl out back home and we agreed to go out when I was home on leave...well that ain't happening for awhile. So shit.**

**But its good overall.**

* * *

**On Menagerie**

**"**Is it really wise to move research here?" Ironwood asked as Ozpin and the others had deduced what had happened to Team RWBY and JNPR.

"James if we had the facility in Atlas, it would only raise suspicion, we're trying to keep this discreet."

Ironwood knew they needed to be discreet, he just wasn't sure about the place they had chosen to move dust research on the bullet casing they found.

Ironwood had been brought from Atlas, when he received a notifcation on his scroll, it was a mutual tracking device he and Winter kept in case anything was to grow wrong. It worked all over Remnant, and there in lied the problem. The signal suddenly disappeared. Most would think it was because of the scroll having a low battery, but this particular tracker was powered by a separate battery which could last years, the only possible explanation was that it had to have been destroyed, so when that happened, Ironwood immediately flew to Beacon to find out what happened.

Their search led them to the sight where Winter had been with the two huntsman teams. The area itself looked like it had been hit with wind dust or something, because gear was scattered all about, but there was no blood, no sign of an explosion, it was if they had simply been blown away. All they found was a small sample of unknown dust left in the casing for a bullet. They took the sample of it and brought it back for some researchers to look at.

And needless to say, after two weeks there had been issues.

_"Sir with all due respect, we're having trouble figuring out the composition of dust that was used."_

_"IT WAS MADE BY A TEENAGE GIRL IN HER DORM ROOM!" _

_"...We're sorry Sir." _

Ironwood could not believe it, some of the best guys he had from the R&D section of Atlas technology couldn't figure out the measurements or composition for dust that had been used. While two hormonal teenage girls could. It was sounding like something out of a shitty kids adventure novel.

They did find out what it was, granted through a lot of technical and weird science mumbo jumbo that Ironwood couldn't understand, and they found out somehow the dust had the ability to transport people through the space time continuum. They found this out by using the dust to open up a temporary wormhole, the issue was due to the small amount used, they could only keep the portal open for about ten seconds.

Which to be honest, he didn't want to see anymore, because the dust didn't give them a clue as to where Winter was, and even worse, the world he did see was...horrifying.

For some reason he saw a bunch of men in black armor with white crosses and machine guns slaughtering what appeared to be humanoid animals with big tits. Needless to say Ironwood felt the need to throw out after he saw one of the furry humanoids get castrated by some kind of chainsaw rifle.

_"WE WILL SPAY, AND WE WILL NEUTER UNTIL THERE IS NOTHING LEFT!" _

Despite how disgusted he was, he couldn't help but feel that it was justified in a way. **(1)**

But recently, they were worried about a security leak ever since Winter's disappearance. So Ironwood didn't want to risk Beacon possibly finding out about it, so they decided to move research to THE last place people would expect to find them.

Menagerie.

It was rather isolated, and any white fang sympathizers were ones who thought the group was still a peace loving organization, so they were not a threat. And any of the radical elements hadn't been seen since they moved into the main kingdoms to spread their reign of tyranny. And best part is, since the research team was small, they could travel fairly undetected. So they literally were able to find a rundown shop and pose as a regular dust merchant, but if one was to look in the back, they would find plenty of research equipment for the team.

Granted

One would assume that because Menagerie was full of Faunus, that it wouldn't have any issues. However, besides the obvious issues with the land itself, and how the humans had sent them here knowing how it was a land full of problems, Menagerie did have its own issues with homelessness and the poor like anyone else. The homeless wouldn't freeze to death, the climate was too warm for that, Water wasn't an issue, there was plenty of fresh water to go around, but a big issue was being able to get enough food and being able to raise enough money in order to finally move up in life.

Some were lucky and were able to find work abroad, deciding to take their chances in another land where they can could a fresh start. Others took local work and managed to free themselves from poverty. But for some, they were still on the streets, and you had to be smart to be able to survive.

"HEY!"

"Sorry!" A little lion faunus was running as she was in a panic.

"Come on! Come on! Got to get there!" She said as he was running towards work.

Some would wonder why a seven year old was working. Well the truth was that after the orphanage burned down, she had been one of the unfortunate few who had been stuck on the streets. Which meant she had to work alongside the other children who were stuck without a home, some were adopted, but others such as her were not so lucky, especially since in the area she lived, it was still poor and while some were willing to take in one child, most would not take in more than one. So she had been stuck trying to find work when she could. And she managed to find work at the fishery...or at least she did if she could keep it.

Sadly, she overslept, and she was in danger of being late. And the boss there didn't give you any second chances. Especially since she was still a child. While child labor laws in Menagerie were much more lax than in some other parts of the world, it was generally frowned upon, so most places wouldn't hire those under the age of ten. So Nala had been lucky to find this job.

"Come on!" She said as she came to the door of he fishery.

Only to see the boss waiting ouside with a frown on his face.

"You're late."

"I ov-" He held up a hand.

"I'm sorry Nala, you know the rules, can't bend them, not even for you, especially with the risk I already took in hiring you." He said as he fished something out of his pocket.

"Heres some money for some lodging, thats all I can spare, in the meantime might want to find a new job." He said as she frowned.

While the lien was appreciated, this wasn't going to be enough, especially since she needed a steady source of cash flowing through.

Sighing, she did the only thing she could do, go to a local cheap motel, and get a place to stay for a few nights. Luckily she had enough lien she could stay there for three nights with food, but she really needed to find a new job and quick. Miracles didn't happen if you didn't work for them.

Either way she was still mad, before this, life wasn't too bad, sure she lived at the orphanage, but the matron and patron there were good people, they were fair and Nala got to play with the other kids, so she was still having a good childhood. But then the orphanage burned down, the owners could only adopt a few, and they were trying to rebuild the orphanage, but sadly they had lost so much in the fire that they were having a hard time scraping money together to rebuild the orphanage, their insurance only covered so much.

Did Nala hate that she had to work at a young age? Of course she did, but she was smart enough to know she had to survive.

She walked into the cheapest motel she could find and managed to get a room for three nights. Until then, she had to look for a new job.

She knew there was a new dust store opening up on Menagerie, maybe she could go there? It beat the hell out of working in the fishery.

Some would assume because she was part of the feline faunus family that meant she liked fish.

She didn't. In fact she HATED fish. The fact that she had to work at the fishery when she hated the smell of fish pissed her off immensly.

What she would GIVE for a nice steak dinner right now. She found herself drooling at it. Sadly, she shook her head of the thoughts.

If there was one thing she learned, it was that steak was expensive. So most likely the only food she could afford on her budget would be cheap tv dinners.

She sighed as she laid her head back in the hotel bed.

"I need to get out of this place..." Nala would often find herself praying for a new life and a fresh start. Faaarrrrr away from Menagerie.

Sadly that seemed like too far of a dream for a seven year old faunus.

All she wanted was a new life and a chance to be a kid again. Thats all she wanted.

* * *

**Jem**

"Goddammit!" Jem said as he was avoiding Melania as Alex was helping him hide.

"Damn, that girl is obssessed with you, what do you have a big dick or something?"

"No! She's crazy!"

"Ha..you just admitted you have a small dick." Alex giggled as Jem glared.

"First off, fuck you and two, its average! More importantly why is your girlfriend helping her?!" Jem said as Melania and Alex's nameless girlfriend were still hanging out like nothing happened.

"Oh my dearest Jemmy, once a woman is convinced she's right, she won't listen to anything else, women hate being wrong, but the one thing they hate more than being wrong, is someone SAYING that they're wrong."

"So what do I have to do to get Melania off of me?"

"Well, I don't know, you can't exactly disturb her with fetishes because she's a furry and into BDSM, so trying to scare her like that won't work.." Alex put his thumb against his chin as he thought.

"We could always try to convince her you're actually gay, but then again, you almost slept with her so thats not true." Again he was thinking.

"I think the only way this will work is if you get a new girlfriend!" Alex said executing the next step of Winter Hugs and snugz.

"...How about we just pretend I'm gay, that has a higher chance of working." Jem said as Alex giggled.

"Nope! We just got to find you a new date!"

"Oh yeah? Like who?"

"Oh thats easy..." Alex grinned as it was time to plant the seed.

"Winter of course!"

He wasn't expecting Jem to laugh so much.

"HA HA HA HA! Oh my god, thats good." He wiped a tear from his eye.

"Huh?" Alex pretended to play dumb, but he knew what he was doing.

"I mean come on, me go on a date with Winter? That has as much of a chance happening as a weeaboo does of losing his virginity before he turns 30." Jem said as Alex rolled his eyes.

"Well Honey, I'm just saying you two would be cute together."

"No we wouldn't."

"Yes you would, her countess to your farm boy! Its opposites attract!"

"That only happens in shitty romance novels!"

"Okay lets try a simpler approach, you think she's hot right?"

"Well obviously, have you ever looked at her ass? Its like her shorts are painted on!"

"See? You obviously find her attractive...I would have pegged you for a boobs man though." Alex was honestly surprised that Jem was more of an "Ass Man".

"Theres more to relationships that physical attraction, I can find a girl hot as hell but not want to date her."

"And what would be so bad about being in a relationship with her?"

"I'm not getting into this conversation any further! She saw me!" Jem said as Melania found his hiding spot.

"Come back my little wolf!" She said as Jem cringed at that nickname.

Meanwhile Alex was laughing like a maniac on the inside. One would ask why, after all, Jem just said he wouldn't date Winter. But you see, they forgot one thing. All Alex needed to do was plant the seed in his mind. After all, Jem had never thought about dating her before, but now the suggestion was in his head, and because he was cut off from listing his reasons why it would be bad to be in a relationship with Winter, he would be less distracted about their opposite personality traits and more focused on how 'At least she wasn't Tigerstripe.'

"Oh yeah, its all coming together."

* * *

**(1) Flashgitz Sonic Gets Cucked**

**And Yes I brought Nala back for this, but as you can tell, a slightly different origin story, as well as a slightly changed personality at first. But don't worry, she's still the little lion cub you remember, just slightly older.**


	23. The Lovesteak Blues

**Well here we go another chapter. **

* * *

**Jem**

Jem was relaxing in his motorhome. He finally had some time to himself. Winter was spending time with Alex, because for some reason Alex figured he needed to get to know Winter better for some reason. He had no idea why. Winter didn't seem too excited about it because Alex was taking her shopping and going to get mani pedis together...seriously he was easily the most metrosexual man he had ever met. Jem didn't care, if that was his lifestyle he didn't give a shit, as long as Alex didn't try to force him into some weird ass thing he didn't want to do. They had a 'You do your thing, I'll do mine.' agreement, but also agreed to try one activity the other liked at least once a month.

For example, Jem took Alex rifle shooting, Alex took Jem flower picking. Jem took Alex hunting, Alex took Jem to a local production of Hairspray. Which Jem couldn't help but feel that was supposed to be some sort of sick joke about him having no hair. But he didn't care. They had a deal. And it was kind of funny, because with more of Jem's influence, Alex was turning into something straight out of a 4chan weapons forum. And by that he meant Alex somehow bought a humvee and put anime decals on it while rigging a loudspeaker to play anime openings...

Jem wasn't sure if he should be proud or horrified.

On one hand, Alex was starting to get more into guns, on the other he was still such a god damned weeb.

Oh well, small small victories.

But as of right now, it was just him, no Winter, No Alex, just him and John Wayne. He had put on Hatari while making himself a small feast of steak, bacon, eggs, and some buttered toast. And to top it all off, Black coffee, and a bottle of whiskey just in case he got a bit thirsty. Overall, it was a good day so far. No problems.

"Hi Jem! Whatcha up to?!" Yang burst into his trailer as he spilled some of his coffee on his shirt and lap.

"AGH! Damn it!" He said as he felt the lot liquid pour onto him.

"Oh! I'm sorry!" She said as by instinct she grabbed some napkins and started to help him clean up.

"Hi Jemmy! We were just...YANG!" Ruby yelled horrified as she saw what her sister was doing.

"Hi Jem, we all thought it would be...THATS MY BOY!" Jem's dad yelled in pride as Jem was confused while Yang was oblivious.

"Why is everyone yelling?" He asked as all that was happening was Yang was cleaning him up.

Until he looked in the mirror and realized from their angle it looked like she was giving him a handjob.

"Yang, I'm good, I'm fine." He said as she backed away revealing the wet napkins.

"Phew..." Ruby said. Her sister wasn't a whore.

"Damn it!" Pa said, his son was still single.

Jem just shot him a look that said '_She JUST turned 18, don't make this weird!" _

Plus he wasn't interested. Honestly he decided to take a break from dating, between dealing with Melania, and Winter being such a stick in the mud while she lived with him, he had enough of women for awhile. And to think Alex wanted them to date. Ugh, he didn't see why. He had enough problems. Sure he would be lying if he said Winter wasn't hot, she was, that much was for sure. But he just couldn't see them dating for one main reason.

He was an enlisted man, and she was an officer woman, which meant there was a very big disconnect between the two.

For fucks sake, he was certain she looked at him as the peasantry.

Oh well fuck it, it is what it is.

**Meanwhile Back on Remnant**

Nala was not having a good day. She tried to go to that new dust store to get a job, but she just got a 'we're not open for business yet, come again later.' So now there went one job opening. She tried to get another job waiting tables at a local restaurant, but of course the owners were those who didn't believe in child labor, so that was a pain in the ass. Seriously, Child Labor laws were ruining this country. She needed the goddam money! Seriously, there should be a rule that if you're homeless, no parents, and no orphanage to go to, you should be able to work if you actually want to!

Ugh, now she was mad because one part of her brain wanted people to treat her like an adult, while in reality she still wanted to be a kid. She hated it.

She sighed as she went to a local food stand, she would feel better once she got a beef bowl.

"Sorry kid, all out of steak, we have tuna though?" And with that Nala realized if she had a gun, she would have gone out and shot a cow herself.

Seriously? This was like that Spruce Willis movie where all he wants is a cappuccino but it keeps getting taken away from him at the last minute.

"All I want is steak..." Nala said as she could handle being homeless, she could handle being wet and cold.

But damn it, a life without steak? That sucked.

"Well, guess I'll try that dust store again tomorrow." She still had two more nights at the hotel left before she had to check out.

Looked like another depressing night of no more money and no steak.

But she kept a positive attitude, she had a good feeling about the future, one day she would have her steak...

Oh yes she would...

**Ironwood and Ozpin**

"Was it a dick move turning away that homeless kid this morning?" A female atlesian soldier said as the man nodded.

"No shit it was a dick move, how the hell are we going to explain how the reason we're not open for business in a few days is because we're doing something completely shady?" The man said as Ironwood and Ozpin looked on.

The truth is they were discussing the matter at hand. Because the cover for this whole secret research was that people believed it was a legitimate dust store. And considering they picked one of the crappier parts of Menagerie where not a lot of people like to be, they figured it would be the perfect cover. What they weren't expecting was for a homeless girl to come asking for a job. And Ironwood would admit, he felt like a douchebag for having to order his soldiers to turn her away. But then again, they also fucked up by saying 'Come back later' meaning that she was going to eventually come back for a job.

"Oz, eventually that will raise suspicion, if people wonder why we haven't opened despite the numerous amount of equipment we got, they may ask questions." Ozpin merely sipped his coffee.

"Then its simple, we keep the cover."

"...Are you suggesting we actually open a dust store?"

"Well why not? All the research is being done in the lower levels, as long as we keep inventory on the ground level and make it difficult to get to the lower levels, then we're good." He said as simple as that.

"...This all sounds too simple to work."

"You would be surprised...Well that and..." Ozpin took off his glasses and wiped them down.

"Again, it kind of felt bad turning away a homeless girl for work..."

"Agreed, but at the same time, what if she finds out what we're doing here?" Ironwood asked as Ozpin chuckled.

"Oh please James, you're acting like this is a spy movie, what are the odds a faunus girl of 6 or 7 is going to find a top secret research lab?" He asked as he walked away.

"Thats ridiculous!" He laughed as he drank his coffee.

Ironwood himself had a small laugh about it too.

"Yeah, you're right, I'm just being paranoid." He said as he looked towards the actual storefront property they bought.

Well, if they were going to make this look like a dust store, might as well fix it up a bit.


	24. Funny how life changes

**Alright guys another chapter, now some people were asking me to work more on Screaming Eagles, which I finally started writing another chapter for that. The problem is I don't really know where I want to go with it. Same with the others, I was excited about getting them started, but seems like I don't have a plan for how I want them to go.**

**Also I know a lot of people would think quarantine on base would give me time to write...well I'm still doing PT, and to be honest, I haven't been sleeping well lately. I think its just because I went from doing a lot of shit all day to not doing shit. And I miss doing shit. I've caught up on a shit ton of reading, but goddam it's not enough.**

**But I'm still getting paid. So thats nice.**

**UPDATE: I wrote the first part of this authors note a loonng ass time ago, now I'm actually having regular work days, but now I'm trying to get into this CNC programing course so I have a job right away when I get out, but paperwork is a bitch and I still have field training to do on top of that. Annnd on top of that, field training is about to kick up again, so I'm literally going to pretty much spend the entire month of June busy as fuck.  
**

* * *

**Jem**

"Why are you playing a game with a...what the hell is that? A black rat with a gun?" Winter asked as Jem was playing an old Ps2 game.

"Hey I don't give a damn if people gave this game a bad rap, I love it!" He grumbled.

"And for the record, he's a hedgehog!" He said as he admitted this game was a guilty pleasure.

Maybe it was because he wasn't a hardcore sonic fan, and thats the reason he didn't hate the game, but he honestly didn't understand why everyone he ever met hated it. It was a hedgehog with guns.

Besides, considering all the weird ass furry porn the fandom was into, he was certain their opinions were pretty fucked up by now.

So screw it!

"Aren't you a bit old for video games?"

"No such thing as being too old for video games as long as you don't end up like one of those virgins who uses video games as escapism from the real world."

"Ugh." Winter said as she went back to reading a book.

Needless to say, while he and Winter were generally on good terms, she could also be a bit of a bitch. On top of that, she woudln't let him change his clothes in the trailer anymore, mostly because she kept accidentally walking in on him, so to stop it, she made him shower and change his clothes in his parents house versus the trailer. Seriously how big of a prude was he that he couldn't even change his shirt without her barging in? And why was it such a big deal?

The most confusing bit was why the hell did she want to stay in the trailer when she could use the shower in the house? It was much better than the one in the trailer. But Jem figured it was just the conveniance factor, he didn't know, he kind of stopped caring after the first few times. Now it was just one of those roll your eyes moment when they aren't looking.

Other than that, he got along pretty well with the rest of Team RWBY and JNPR. Pyrrha was probably one of his favorites to get along with because she was just an adorable amazon. Ruby was an adorkable little cookie. Blake was getting along with his family's new kitten. Granted He had a feeling it was because Blake was secretly trying to train the little kitten to overthrow Zeus, which hadn't been working because he saw the kitten and his dog cuddling together.

Yang was working out with him occassionally because she was one of the few girls he knew who really appreciated weight lifting as much as he did. Nora was, well she was hyper but lovable. Ren never caused him any problems. And Jaune was honestly just living his best life right now.

So besides his issues with Winter, it had been smooth sailing.

"Meow." He walked into the house to see that little Kirby the kitten was riding on top of Zeus's head like it was the neverending story.

"Awwwwwwww..." He said as it reminded him of Pixie and Brutus.

"Nooooo!" Blake silently moaned as the kitten was not understanding what was going on.

Seriously cats and dogs were natural enemies! How did this keep happening.

"Aren't you both just adorable?!" He said as he starting petting Kirby under his chin and giving Zeus a belly rub.

"..." Blake just watched in irritation as she decided to give it up and go back to reading.

"Hey son, she kick you out again?" Pa said as Jem nodded.

"I just don't see why, I mean its not my fault she walks in on me changing each time." He said as he took his shirt off and picked up his NYPD tank top he got from a guy he wrestled with in the army.

"Couldn't tell you, I'm in my 60s and I still have trouble understanding women."

"You and Mom get along just fine?"

"Yeah but honestly most of the time I still have no idea what the fuck is going on, and I've been winging it."

"...Winging it for thirty years?"

"Hasn't failed me yet."

Okay hard to argue with that logic.

"What if she says something you disagree with and finding annoying."

"Oh in that case, be brutally honest about it. I mean sure they'll get pissed that you didn't lie about it, and you'll sleep on the couch for a bit, but better than lying."

"How many times has that happened?"

"More times than I can count, but again, who cares, just means you won."

"Anyone ever tell you that you and Bill Burr would get along?" Jem was sure he had heard that off a Bill Burr special.

"Well yeah, doesn't it make it any less true." Seriously he would pay to see his Dad and Bill Burr have a conversation.

Then again, considering how Winter usually ended up screaming at him to put some clothes on after she walked in on him, and he argued back that she was the one walking in on him, the whole time it always ended with her continuing the argument and getting so annoying that Jem would usually just give up if it got her to shut up.

He reaalllly didn't understand, she seemed so nice in the show, why was she suddenly so worked up all the time?

**Back in Remnant**

"Thank you, come again!" Nala said for what felt like the 50th time today.

She was much happier now, she got a big hiring bonus when she got the job at the dust store. And she was making enough money to pay for the motel room she was currently renting out, as well as having plenty of food. That being said, after bills and everything taken out, she didn't have much left, and she knew she had to save that, because she never knew what could happen next.

It also helped the dust store was very close to the motel, so she didn't have to worry about being late if she woke up too late, because it was about a five minute walk away from where she was currently living. So it felt like everything was looking up.

"Mom, can I get this magazine?" A little ram boy asked his mom as she nodded.

"I don't see the harm in that." She said as it was a Popular Dust mechanics magazine, there was no harm in that.

And just like that, Nala felt a bit lonely. As much as she disliked being at the orphanage because of how lonely she felt, there were still other kids, and the owners there were nice. It wasn't like having parents though, and that was what she felt like she was missing out on.

She sighed in defeat, she was only seven years old, and she was working full time, she knew she needed to do it to survive, but at the same time, she also had to deal with the fact that she would most likely never get to have a childhood. Even a childhood at the orphanage would be preferable to living by herself and providing for herself. Again she knew she shouldn't be thinking that, there were a lot of kids worse off than her in the world, but she couldn't help but feel sad about the way things were turning out.

Was it too late for her? Hell, she hadn't even seen the former orphanage owners in a long time, what were they doing now?

She sighed and rang up the bill for the mother and son and went straight back to work.

She went in the back and got some of the other stock that had been depleted from the store and restocked the shelves.

Well...at least it was better than being on the streets.

She just wished it wasn't always going to be this lonely.


	25. HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY

**Alright guys another chapter, so an update on life, since Base has pretty much opened back up again, I can finally go to the gym again. WHich has been helping me get back into a normal routine. But my time in the army is running out, and I'm already trying to find a job back home even though I still got roughly six to seven months left. But these past few weeks have been busy as hell with all the field training.**

**Also my SGM kind of screwed me over and rejected my paperwork for CNC programming because it would be going on during JRTC...so in other words, the green weenie strikes again.**

**Oh and funny thing, one of the soldiers I serve with, I just found out his name is actually Jeremiah, and its kind of funny.**

**But anyways, HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY!**

**Sorry the chapter is so short, but its independence day, I got my own plans.**

* * *

**Jem**

**"HELL FUCKING YEAH!" **Jem had his guns out as he had his Betsy Ross t shirt on and a pair of american flag ranger panties on while he was drinking Blackbeards delight out of one cup, and some bourbon out of another. How was he doing this when he was carrying his guns in both hands? Simple, he rigged up one of those beer dispensing helmets to work with coffee and bourbon instead.

"Ugh, why are you being so loud?" Winter said as she woke up only to have a cup of coffee shoved in her face.

"Because its Independence day! The most wonderful time of the year!" He said as Winter looked confused.

"I've been studying your holidays, I thought Christmas was the most wonderful time of the year.

"Hell no! Cold beer, fireworks, Barbecued meat, guns, and patriotic movies, this is the best time of the year." He said as he already had the patriot playing in his motorhome.

"Isn't that a bit much?" She asked as Remnant didn't get this patriotic with any of their kingdoms.

"If anything I'm going light this year." He said as last time they had an American Revolution reenactment.

"Besides come on, lighten up a bit!" He said as he headed outside the trailer.

"Where are you going?"

"Simple, I got a ton of ammo to go through, a ton of tannerite, and some fireworks to light off right before breakfast."

"Wait before breakf-" She suddenly saw the big ass pile of eggs, bacon, steak, hashbrown potatoes, and coffee underneath a big heating lamp.

"Yeah! Like I said, now is the time to celebrate!" He said as he loaded a mag into his AR and went to go to his little shooting range.

"Americans..." Winter had been saying that a lot since she had gotten here.

BANG BANG BANG

She looked outside to see Jem was shooting a picture of Xi Jinping dressed as Winnie the pooh.

"Mag change!" He yelled as he dropped one mag, loaded another and started shooting at a picture of Stalin.

"...Well...at least hes enthusiastic." Winter was just glad she wasn't being brought into any crazy antics.

She had a horrible dream last night that for some reason, Jem had been drinking Rum, dressed up like a pirate, and she had to chase him down as he was hopping from semi truck to semi truck. She wasn't quite sure why she had that dream, nor why she was worried about him in the first place. All she knew for sure was that the dream was exhausting as hell.

Ever since she got here she had been having weird dreams. One where Jem fired a howitzer to beat her in a shooting match, another one where he ended up giving Whitley an atomic wedgie in the Schnee mansion, and for some reason she even had a dream of a nameless little girl kicking her father straight in the dick.

...She was certain someone had slipped something into her nighttime tea, because these dreams were full of wtf moments.

BUT, there was one that really really bothered her.

In the dream, she was in the Schnee mansion with Jem, and...well, there was no other way to say it, they had sex...and Jem screamed it loudly enough for everyone including her father to hear.

When she woke up, she had never felt so embarassed in her life, and it hadn't even happened. It wasn't just because he screamed it, it was because this wasn't the first sex dream she had of him. Ever since she read that damn novel and walked in on him naked, she had been having those dreams. Granted, she knew it couldn't be anything serious. And she even had an explanation why.

It was no secret that she had never been in a serious relationship, nor had she ever felt any urges...but ever since she read that novel, and sadly because she saw Jem's body closely afterwards, she was absolutely sure that her brain made the connection between the two, so the only reason she had been having those dreams was because Jem was in such close proximity when it happened, not because she was actually attracted to him!

Granted, it didn't stop the dreams from happening, but now she could rest a bit easier at night.

"Winter! Come on out! I got to teach you how to celebrate the fourth of july!" Jem yelled as she sighed.

"I don't see why that's n-" Suddenly he put a SCAR in her hands.

"...This looks acceptable." She said as it certainly felt nice.

"Come on! We got a lot more rounds to drop!" And then he held up his brown bess musket.

"Isn't she a beauty?" He asked while holding it.

"Kind of old isn't she?"

"Hey, she may be old, but shes still a beauty."

He got ready to shoot.

"Now come on, we got cold beer, good food, guns, and later theres a fireworks show, why don't we just enjoy the day for what it is?"

She still seemed a little apprehensive.

"Well...okay, but I don't know much about Independence day."

"Oh you gonna learn today."


	26. Nala's Journey

**Alright guys another chapter, so I had a great Independence Day. Grilled up some meat, went to the gun range with a few friends, bought some products made here in the USA, drank some cold beer, and we finished it off with some fireworks off base, since we're not allowed to have them on base. Overall a good day. **

**Great way to spend the birthday of the greatest nation in the world.**

**Now just an update on how I'm doing in life. Truth is pretty good, I'm counting down the days til my ETS date which is fast approaching, have a new job lined up for when I get out, and if I play my cards right, I'll even be upgrading my truck to a jeep gladiator or a Ram 1500 when I get out the army.**

**Anyways this chapter may seem rushed because I wasn't sure how I wanted to do it. So bear with me.**

* * *

**"Ah shit! My head hurts!" **Jem had a hangover from all the drinking he did last night.

Winter was sitting by the coffee table in the motorhome not doing much better, granted her Aura was also helping her a bit. But she was still looking into her Black rifle coffee praying for a quick recovery as she held two fingers up against her temple.

"Could you keep it down?" She said as she didn't understand why some people yelled when they had a hangover. That seemed to be the opposite of what you would want to do.

"Can't help it, if I yell more, my brain will realize the pain hurts a lot and cure my hangover faster." Jem said as Winter had never heard something so stupid in her life.

"...Are you drunk?"

"Noooo, I was drunk yessstteeerrddayyy, thats what causes hangovers." He said feeling a lot like Jack Black.

Winter didn't even try to understand his logic. That made no sense, your brain couldn't trick itself into curing-

"Ah much better!" He said as he drank some coffee and he seemed a lot more chipper.

"...WHAT?!" She yelled but her head throbbed too much and she winced.

"What? I told you, my brain worked hard to help make my hangover go away." Jem said as Winter gaped at him.

"Bullshit!" That was not physically possible!

"Hey, maybe its placebo, as long as I believe in it, maybe it will work."

"Thats not how the placebo effect works!" Jem just chuckled a bit.

"You might want to stop yelling if your hangover is that bad." He winked teasing her with her own pain.

"Ugh." She said as she went back to sipping her coffee.

In reality, Jem's head still hurt, but he honestly was hiding the pain just to screw with Winter.

While he was used to hangovers, he knew it would be at least another hour until he was through with it.

If he was back down in Tennessee, all it would take is a sausage, egg and cheese hashbrown bowl from waffle house to chase the headache away. Seriously waffle house was perfect for hangovers. Anyone who didn't think so was full of shit.

"Ow." He said quietly to himself as his head was still throbbing a bit.

"Damn, why did I move back to Illinois? I would have been happier if I stayed down south." He said to himself as he remembered how much more he liked the southern states versus his shitty home state.

Seriously it was like moving out of a happy home in the woods and moving into a crack den.

"I might have some brain damage from all the barracks parties." He remembered how they rolled a guy up in a mattress, duct taped it closed, and then threw him off the second floor of the barracks.**(1)**

He was starting to feel a bit nostalgic and missing his time in the army, it really got him thinking about his life was going.

_"You should talk to a prior service recruiter and reenlist!" _And then he stood up straight as he banished those evil thoughts form his head.

"Nope, not doing that! Nuh uh!" He may be missing the army, but he sure as hell wasn't going to reenlist so he could have another platoon sergeant smoke the shit out of him because his roommate left a pubic hair on the toilet seat **(2)**

It was times like this when he missed how things used to be, he thought back to Gandalf giving that speech to Frodo about what you need to do with the time thats given to you. And it reminded him that his life may be changing, and that change could be uncomfortable at time, but it was the decisions you made in that moment that would determine if you ended up with a happy life, or you ended up working a dead end job and hating your existence for the rest of your life.

He was determined to do something better with his life, and even though he was glad for his time in the military, that time was over, and it was time to move on.

Granted he was also hoping he wouldn't be dealing with a bunch of anime characters who for some reason were able to bring anime logic into the real world. But then again what was he expecting considering their way of even arriving in this world sounded like some bullshit dimension hopping plot device.

* * *

**Back on Remnant**

Nala was still grateful for her job, but honestly she was getting bored, the routine was the same day in and day out. She would come in, help people find dust, restock the shelves, man the counter, and she would clock out at the end of the day. She was putting some money into savings, but honestly most of it went into paying bills, she never had any time for herself.

And because she was so young, it wasn't like she could just go off traveling, more importantly she didn't know the first thing about anything other than working so she could eat and sleep for the night. It made her jealous of all the kids she saw who came in here with their parents to pick up some dust or even other things from the various other sections they had. She wished she could be having a normal childhood, but she wasn't. And even though she knew she would be grateful to be alive, and even more grateful that she was working a fair job that didn't exploit her and came with good benefits, she knew it wasn't right for her to be working this young.

"Nala, could you go in the back and get some more fire dust? We're running low." Her boss said as Nala nodded.

"On it." She said in a bit of a low tone, she had lost her enthusiasm a while ago.

And yet another boring part of her monotonous life.

She walked into the back and started looking for fire dust.

Only to see that it was all on the top shelf.

"Great..." She said as she got the ladder.

Seriously, so far she was their only worker, and yet they put some of the dust they needed on the top shelf making it inconvenient for her to get?

It made zero sense.

"Okay, lets see lets just get some WOAH!" She tripped and as she was grabbing a vial, she yanked back.

CLICK

She fell to the ground and expected to fall on her back and that would be the end.

What she was NOT expecting was for the feeling of falling to continue.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" She yelled as he floor gave out from underneath her as an elevator was taking her deeper and deeper into the hidden underground store.

"WHAT DID I DO?!" She was scared she had accidentally blown a hole in the ground and somehow created a tunnel leading to the planets core.

Course that may have just been because she watched that one movie with Baron Airhart last night about them trying to get to the center of the earth for some reason, she couldn't remember what it was called though.

"SOMEONE STOP THIS CRA-" Suddenly she finally hit solid ground.

"OOF!...Owwwwwww." She said as her back was killing her now.

"What in the world just hap-" She was cut off as she looked at her new surroundings.

Somehow she was in some kind of underground cavern/laboratory. She had no idea what was going on, nor did she know she was here. But being seven years old, her brain came to the only conclusion she could come up with.

"Oh god, I'm in some kind of secret military base like Station 52!" Suddenly she was worried men in black were about to come and arrest her.

"Okay calm down, I'm sure theres a reasonable explanation for this." She said as she stood up and looked around.

"...Shouldn't there be more people around?" She asked as she was expecting to see armed guards or something.

But this whole place seemed pretty empty, but then again looking around she seemed to only be at the entrance. She was certain that there had to be other areas to this cave, maybe even hiding stuff like tentacle monsters or-

"Hey! What are you doing down here!" She turned to see an armed guard with a rifle looking at her.

"AAHHH! Men in black!" She screamed as she did the one thing any seven year old would do.

She took off running!

"Alert all units! Alert all units! Unauthorized personnel detected!" The guard said into a radio as Nala took off running.

"I don't want to get probed!" She yelled as she had seen plenty of alien documentaries.

Granted, the guard looked human, but she wasn't taking any chances!

She heard alarms blaring, and yet for some odd reason, she was able to run through automatic doors like nothing, she would have assumed that after the alarms started blaring that they would have cut off all access to any other parts of the base, but for some odd reason, she was going through multiple areas like it was nothing, occasionally passing by guys in radiation suits or other guards. Which promptly joined the chase. But it still didn't make sense. You would think a secret government organization like Men in black would be better at this?

"Stop!" Another guard yelled as she looked behind her to see at least ten people chasing her.

"Oh no no no no!" She yelled as she realized she was in over her head.

"Theres got to be someplace to go!" She yelled as she opened up one last door.

"Don't let her in there!" The guards yelled as Nora saw a door lowering itself slowly.

Again, that also made no sense, why would the door be going slow if they were desperately trying to cut it off? Wouldn't it make more sense if it slammed down blocking off her escape? Seriously these people were the worst secret agency she had ever heard of!

"WOOOOOOOO!" She yelled as she went to the ground sticking her foot out like she was sliding into home before the catcher could react.

Only to see that she was about to crash into a bunch of dust vials.

"OH CRAP!" She said as she held her hands in front of her face ready for the impact.

This was going to hurt.

* * *

**Jem**

"Damn I love nature." Jem said as he was out hiking.

This was one of the things he could do to get away from all the craziness that had occurred in his life recently. Just go out in a green sleeveless hoodie, jeans and hiking boots and just enjoy nature for what it was. Pretending he was a buffer version of an elf from Lothlorien.

Hey he may have been built like an Uruk hai, but he enjoyed nature like an elf.

And the best part was, he even packed his own food and cooking supplies in his hiking backpack. He found a nice cave to set up camp in which gave a perfect view of the forest he was currently in, and he smiled as he got ready to set up camp.

He set up his camp chair first, and then he started to unpack the supplies he had brought for his weekend camping trip away from RWBY, JNPR and Winter. Don't get him wrong, he did enjoy hanging out with them for the most part, but every now and then you had to get away.

"Do do dooo." He sang and hummed to himself as he brought up a tiny collapsible wood burning stove/firepit.

He only bought this because he saw it on multiple camping channels, and how it seemed just big enough to cook small meals for one to two people, and since he wasn't going to be out here for very long, he didn't see the need to have a big campfire, especially since the weather was warming up now.

It was then he brought out his main meal for the day. He pulled out a cooler out of his pack and unveiled his pride and joy. Two large porterhouse steaks, along with his seasonings, cast iron skillet, and everything he needed to cook with.

"Now this is life." He said as he enjoyed these small trips he took.

All he had to do was cook his own meals, enjoy nature and just get away from the hustle and bustle of everyday life, it was a perfect vacation for him.

So without any hesitation, he started his fire, and started preparing his cast iron skillet as he seasoned the steaks, he always liked to let the skillet heat up for a bit while he seasoned the steaks so that way as soon as he put them on, you would immediately hear the satisfying sizzle of meat cooking. Plus this was one big ass skillet, so he could cook them both at the same time.

"Mmmm, this is going to be so good.' He said as he was going with a buttery steakhouse seasoning on both.

"And here we go." He said as he laid the two steaks on the skillet.

And immediately he heard that satisfying sizzle.

"Damn thats sexy." He said as he got his tongs ready as he had a pot of black rifle coffee going on a separate stove.

Seriously he could never understand how people could hate camping, right now he was cooking one of his favorite meals, while making coffee, and just listening to the birds chirping and not having to worry about cars making noises. It was a perfect getaway from modern day life.

He flipped the steaks as he made sure he was getting that nice sear on each side. Occasionally poking the tops with the tongs to see how much give they had, after all, he loved to make sure his steaks were rare, so you had to do the firmness test to see where it was at, lest you commit a sin and fuck up and make your steak well done.

He noticed hey were firming up a little but with plenty of give, so just a little bit longer, and they would be good to give.

He poured himself a cup of coffee and set it off to the side as he got a wooden cutting board out to put the steaks on.

He let them rest for a bit before he got ready to cut into them.

"Well time to di-"

CRACKA BOOM!

"Oh please don't start rai-" Suddenly he looked up and noticed it was still bright and sunny out.

Then where did that boom come fr-

"AHH!" He heard a small scream and a THUMP.

"Ooowwww." He looked in front of him to see a little girl.

"What the he-" Suddenly he took a look at her.

She was face down in the dirt, so he couldn't see her face, but he noticed one very noticeable trait.

A lions tail.

She was a faunus!

But that meant-

"Not agaaiiiinnn." He said as he was worried now.

**Nala's POV**

Nala had no idea what happened, last thing she saw was a bright flash, and now she was face planted into some dirt.

"Owwww." She said as started to pull herself out of the ground.

"What hap-" She was cut off as she opened her eyes and looked around.

She was in a forest now! How was that possible?! The last thing she knew she was in that lab, and then she ran into those dust vials, and now she was here!

"What is goin-" Suddenly she smelled something.

Something...mouthwatering! She knew that smell! She knew it well! And she hadn't smelled it in a long time!

She sniffed the air a little bit more, and she turned her head.

She saw a bearded man wearing jeans, hiking boots, and a sleeveless hoodie, he was staring at her in shock. But she wasn't worried about him, she was more interested in what she saw in front of him.

She saw two very large porterhouse steaks that were fresh off the skillet, not only that but the aroma was invading her nostrils as she couldn't help but get closer as she remembered that sweet sweet smell of cooked steak. Sadly she had not been able to afford beef because of how expensive it was, so it had been nothing but instant ramen ever since she started working, and even then, she still had to buy a grill or a skillet. Since she needed to either grill them or pan sear them. And that was even more money she didn't want to spend.

Her stomach growled as she crawled on all fours towards the steak. But her brain was still able to think clearly.

She looked up into the eyes of the man who was still in shock at what he was seeing. But she looked up at him with those innocent eyes.

"Mister please...could I have some steak?"


	27. Two sides of Jem

**So here we go. So this one was tough to write because I'm busy with life and I've just been trying to handle things. I'm trying to save money, but also trying to pay off this last student loan before the year ends. On top of that, my truck is most likely going to need to be replaced soon, so looking at getting a Jeep gladiator, which costs a lot of money.**

**On top of that, also need to buy a gun for when I get out, because shits wilding out in the civilian world. On top of that, also trying to keep up my gym routine and recently also trying to fit in an MMA routine.**

**Life gets busy guys, and I'll try to make time to write for you, just know that if the chapters aren't as good, I'm only human so bare with me.**

* * *

Jem could tell you about all the things he thought would happen in his lifetime. He figured there was a good chance that he would eventually be rich based on how much of a cheap bastard he was. He figured there was a good chance that something could happen in the world, and people would turn on each other and it would be up to you to protect yourself from all the people eating each other. He figured there was a good chance that eventually he would be able to chase the dreams he had as a kid.

However, if you asked him if he predicted he would be sharing a steak with a little lion faunus who just fell out of a sky, he would tell you there was no way that was ever going to happen.

And yet, here he was watching that adorable little lion faunus munch happily on her porterhouse as he was trying not to daaaww at her.

"S_eriously look at how shes chewing! Like a little lion cub!" _

He couldn't believe it, but needless to say when she looked at him with those innocent kitten eyes, he couldn't help but give her a steak, he was suddenly glad he cooked two porterhouse steaks, otherwise he wouldn't be eating any right now. Seriously she was just so adorable, the fact that he could practically hear nomming sounds radiating from her was giving him diabetes from how sweet it was.

But there still remained the issue at hand...

How the fuck did she get here?

"Uhm, okay uh...Little girl?" He asked.

"Nala!" She chirped between bites.

"Wait really?"

"Yeah why?"

"Thats...a good name..."

"Thanks mister!"

_"You got to be kidding me! She's even named after a Lion king character!"_

She finished off her porterhouse and looked up at Jem.

"Thank you! I haven't had a steak in a long time!" She said as Jem almost felt sorry for her.

"It was nothing." Granted he was hoping to have them both, but eh screw it.

"Uhm, if you don't mind me asking, where am I?" She asked as she looked around, and last she knew, she was on an island, not in a deciduous forest.

"Uh yeah, about that, look kid this is going to be a bit hard to explain, I'm just going to assume based on evidence in front of me, that you're from Remnant." He said as she looked at him while tilting her head like a puppy.

_"Oh sweet jesus fuck, stop being adorable!" _He thought as she looked so confused.

"Well yeah, where else would I be?"

"Kid, this may come as a shock, but you're not on Remnant anymore." He honestly didn't know any other way to put it.

"Ha! Thats funny mister!" She said as he knew this wasn't going to be easy.

"No kid, you don't get it...look, I'm going to take a wild guess and say that you ended up here because you had some dust fall on you?" Now THAT got Nala's attention.

"H-How did you know that?" She asked as the last thing she remembered before landing here was seeing that big collection of dust vials.

"Look kid, you're not the only one who had a mishap and ended up on this planet." Jem figured it was easier to just straight up tell her that rather than go into a big ass explanation that would require over 100 chapters to explain properly.

"Wait...planet?" Suddenly her eyes went wide.

"You're an alien?!" She said taking a step back.

"Uh...I mean technically yes and no?" He said as she would be the alien here.

"...You're not going to experiment on me are you?" She said suddenly scared.

"Nala, if I was going to do that, would I have shared a steak with you?" He pointed out as she suddenly felt more relaxed.

"Thats true, evil people wouldn't share steaks with people."

"You're right, now if a guy offers you candy, thats when you can be suspicious."

Nala laughed a bit at his joke even though she wasn't entirely sure what he meant by it. All she knew was that was what everyone kept telling her, if a strange man offered you candy, chances are something bad was about to happen.

"So you're saying that the dust teleported me to another world?" Nala asked.

"Yep."

"But...you don't look like an alien? You look like a human?"

"Yeah, I mean its hard to explain, yes you're on a different planet, but its populated only by humans, look its hard to explain, and I'm technically on my weekend getaway, why don't we just relax and we'll talk about it later when I take you back to the others."

"Others?"

"What? You're not the only one to land here stranded? How do you think I knew about the dust?" He said as this was sounding too perfect to be true.

"WAIT! But I have a job back home!" She suddenly panicked as she realized she was going to lose her job.

"Wait...job? But you're like seven!"

"...I..." She suddenly got really sad.

"Woah...kid, whats the matter?" He asked as suddenly he felt bad.

"I...I don't have anyone, its just me, so I had to take a job to survive." Oh fuck, now he felt really bad.

He saw Nala's tail droop and her face suddenly got all downtrodden as she was reminded of her situation.

"..." Jems thoughts went quiet for a bit.

"UGH!" Suddenly she found herself in a hug.

_"I don't know really know her that well yet, but if anything were to happen to her, I would kill everyone involved." _He said as he pulled back.

"Look, lets not worry about that, how about I cook up some burgers for us, and we can relax the rest of the weekend? I mean, I still want to get my camping time in, but after that, I'll take you back to the house where you can meet all the others."

Nala's depression was immediately gone as she heard 'Burgers'.

"REALLY?! YOU MEAN IT?!" Suddenly her tail was wagging like a dog.

_"Sweet Fucking Brísingamen! Shes too adorable!"_ He thought as he honestly felt like shedding manly tears.

"Sure, but we did just eat steak, so how about we go for a hike for a bit and well come back in a bit, after all its a new planet to explore and what better way to experience it then in the great outdoors."

Nala suddenly got really excited, she hadn't ever been camping before! Well, despite the living on the streets for a bit. But this was nice! This man gave her food! He was offering her more food! And he was even offering her a place to stay! Granted she had completely forgotten all the 'don't take things from strangers' lessons. But he seemed like a nice guy! And no creep would offer steak!

"Uhm...mister, I don't have any hiking boots though." She said as Jem noticed she was dressed like a city girl.

"Oh...yeah...uhm." He said as the shoes she was wearing looked uncomfortable as fuck.

"Well we could go fishing." He said as she also looked away.

"I don't have any fishing equipment though." She said as she suddenly felt bad because she was interrupting his vacation.

"Don't worry kid, I got a spare fishing pole, you're all set." He said as her smile brightened up again.

_"Oh my god, her fucking smile is seriously making me so happy!" _He couldn't believe how contagious it was.

"But, these shoes are really uncomfortable." She said as Jem noticed they were built more for street walking, and it was a bit rougher terrain to the pond where he wanted to go fishing.

Looking at her defeated face he knew what he had to do.

**TEN MINUTES LATER  
**

"YAY!" Nala couldn't believe she was riding Piggy back as the man was carrying two fishing poles in his hands, he had also put a stetson on Nala's head to protect her head from the sunlight, it was a little bit big for her head, but she refused to take it off now, she absolutely loved it.

Granted, Jem was a little mad because he realized he gave her his expensive stetson, and seeing her be so happy at getting it, he knew he was never going to get that back. But seeing how happy it made her, he could learn to live with it.

Seriously this was turning into a pixie and brutus comic.

"Oh wowee! Look at that!" She said pointing to a butterfly on a tree.

_"...I have my very own pixie..." _He thought to himself.

**Back at the house**

"Ugh." Winter was bored.

Jem had gone off for the weekend. Her sister was out hanging out with Team RWBY and JNPR watching some movies. And here she was sitting by herself alone in the peace and quiet of the motorhome. Truth was that she had been looking for some peace and quiet for a bit, but now that it was here, she was really, really bored.

Usually she would be glad to be rid of distractions as she did enjoy her privacy. But recently it had been different. As much as Jem annoyed her at times, he was entertaining, even though she found herself getting irritated by some of his antics, he also made sure there was never a dull moment. So yeah he could be a pain in the ass at times, but now that he wasn't here, she was starting to see how boring it was when she was by herself.

"Hmmm." She said as she decided to go on his laptop.

When in doubt, just browse the internet. Instantly the laptop opened to his instagram page.

She had seen it before, but she had really only see the first bit of it, which was mainly his gym photos and some of his military photos. So she was curious and decided to scroll further and further down just for the hell of it. The first thing she noticed was how many photos he had of his friends, and of course the more she scrolled down she found more gym and muscle selfies. She rolled her eyes, seemed like nearly every man when he started to notice his physique changing had to post about it. But what surprised her was when she scrolled down further.

She saw a picture of Jem in the dark, and he was writing in a journal. She was curious, so she clicked on the photo.

**_"For as long as I can remember I have dealt with anxiety and depression.' _**

Okay now that was not something she was expecting to read at all. She had seen the man happy as can be and trying to live life the best he could. Hell, he even tried to get her to 'lighten up and see the bright side' So to read a post where he was saying he was dealing with mental health problems was concerning.

_**"But I never sought help for it because I was trying to convince myself that what I was feeling was normal, and eventually all that did was cause everything to come crashing down all at once in the middle of something important." **_

Winter had no experience with this, she could honestly say she never dealt with something like that, however she did know that mental health was a big issue on Remnant specifically among the enlisted men of the Atlesian army. She wasn't entirely sure what the cause of that was.

_**"Eventually I knew I had to swallow my pride and ask for help, so first thing I did was go to get an official diagnosis, the last thing I wanted to do was self diagnose even if I had a pretty good idea of it, finding a counselor was easily the best decision I made as I learned I wasn't the only one who was having problems like this, and that there were simple ways to fix it." **_

Again, she was surprised to see that Jem was going into this much detail considering how he had been the epitome of fun since she got here...even if he could be annoying and an idiot at times.

_**"And one of the things I found the most that helped was journaling, as it was something that helped me rediscover my enjoyment of writing, whether it was short stories or if it was just to organize my thoughts for the day, it gave me a sense of peace, and it made me realize that even though this may always be on my mind, and I would always have some bad days, it didn't mean that there wasn't any meaning in life, it just meant that you had to deal with some bullshit to appreciate the good things in life."**_

That was actually some pretty solid advice, she compared it to how she always kept her itinerary organized, so as to go on the path of least resistance.

_**"I'm not trying to claim what I'm doing will work for everyone, I'm not claiming to be some guy who has it all figured out, but the one thing I can say for sure, don't self diagnose, don't try to solve a problem you have no idea with, if you need a bit of help? Find someone you can trust, and maybe along the way, you'll find your own way to cope."**_

Jem was no poet when it came to putting his thoughts down, but she would admit, it got to the point. Especially that part of not being afraid to ask for help. She thought back to her own childhood, how her father was trying to groom her to be the heiress of the SDC, that was before she joined the military of course. But she remembered it all vividly, the long nights of studying, and how her father was always pushing her to be the best even if she didn't fully understand the magnitude of what she was doing. But her father merely would advise her she would have to figure it out herself as he wouldn't be around to hold her hand when she took his place. She often wondered if her commission into the military was her way of escaping it all. But then again, she didn't regret her decision to join, it wasn't a spur of the moment thing, as odd as it sounded despite the strict lifestyle, the military had provided her with the freedom she so desperately craved.

She tried to think about it from Jem's point of view, was his own thoughts of anxiety and depression similar to the pressure she had as a kid? And much like her he had found an escape?

But one thing still puzzled her, ever since she had been here, she had never seen him once frown. Well, at least not when something serious was brought up, Jem could get pissed if you messed with his stuff.

But her point still stands, not once would she picture him as the type to have those kind of problems? Was he just that good at hiding it?

Suddenly, Jem didn't seem like a caricature or even a clown anymore, and she was starting to wonder if there was more to him then she initially thought


	28. Wholesome

**Alright guys, so heres the thing, obviously I don't want this to be pure crack like the last time. So like I said, I'm introducing more of my own flaws into Jem's character, because I'll admit, I was diagnosed with Anxiety and depression, and yeah it does suck balls. But if theres one thing I can't stand, its how people CONSTANTLY use those as an excuse as to why they can't do anything right. **

* * *

Winter was still surprised when she saw some of Jem's other posts. For awhile she had been thinking him of some dumb hillbilly. But the strangest thing was she was now seeing a side of him she didn't know. Granted she wasn't reading any of his journals, which she saw on his nightstand in the master bedroom of the motorhome. She wasn't going to breach his privacy like that, but his instagram was completely public, so it wasn't like she was creeping on him.

...

Okay maybe a little bit, but she wasn't stalking his page like some high school girl going through her first breakup.

Honestly though she was finding a lot of weird things.

For example, she came across a picture of him holding a drunk mexican guy bridal style as he flipped off the camera.

Okay...that was a bit weird, but she decided to move on.

Next post was a gym transformation photo where she saw a picture of Jem when he was roughly 16 in the mountains, where he was skinny and looked like a skeleton, to a picure of him doing curls in the gym. Again, a bit ego driven, but she was shocked to see he used to be a bag of bones. While she was expecting some dumb ass broscience quote, she saw it was simply a remainder to the people that hard work could pay off.

Next photo she saw was of him sitting atop a fucked up childrens bicycle in what appeared to be a police uniform carrying a SAW. Confused, she looked at the caption.

'Atropian Mounted Police.'

Okay, she had no idea what the fuck Atropia was, but something told her it was a inside joke she would not be understanding anytime soon.

Well, if there was one thing she knew for sure was that he was an odd person. Based on the conversations she had with him, as well as seeing the kind of stuff he posted. It seemed like on one hand, he could be goofy and fun one moment, but serious and stoic when it mattered, add that onto the fact he had admitted to having some issues in the past. It confused her. She usually maintained her work persona all the time, she never saw herself as having two personalities, and she surely never saw the reason to act goofy outside of work.

How the hell do you balance those out? Scrolling further, she also noticed one thing, none of these posts were asking for pity, they weren't depressing, all of them seemed to be trying to motivate people in ways.

_**"I want to make one thing clear, when I post about my own issues with Anxiety and depression, its not some bullshit rant on social media begging for attention like you see most people do, this is just my way of saying 'Hey, I know what its like.' Too many people want to run to social media, and rant about all the terrible events that happen to them and how its making them go crazy and they'll type out a rant about it. I'm trying to tell you this is the exact opposite of what you want to do. Sure they say your social media life doesn't reflect your actual life. But people forget all the time that what they write makes an impression in their mind that they eventually bring into reality with their own thoughts." **_

Jem in the video took a break to take a sip of coffee.

_**"Its true, whatever you're struggling with, it probably sucks, and I feel for you there. But you have to think it through, stop using your social media outlets as a cheap way to get a dopamine high, sure you make a post, and you get everyone's sympathies, but that small rush of dopamine isn't going to last, and eventually you'll look back and realized everyone saw you have a meltdown and it didn't fix anything. You're going to have bad days, thats true. Somedays you will break down, but if you rush to social media for comfort and let everyone know that you're having a breakdown, it will only do more damage and make you feel worse in the long run."**_

He took another break to take his necklace off.

_**"I'm not saying you can't vent, maybe instead of making that long ass facebook rant, pick up the phone and talk to a friend about it, you don't have to bottle it up, but you also don't have to put it out on social media for a cheap dopamine rush. Because once you put that shit onto your page, your brain will trick you into thinking that your entire life is nothing but one big cluster fuck. Because lets face it, even if you claim you can keep your social media persona separate from your personal life? You can't. Whether or not you exaggerate things you've done or what you're going to do, putting those thoughts into reality can have an effect, whether or not you make it positive or negative is up to you." **_

While she didn't quite understand everything she meant. She could have a basic understanding of it all. As she looked back at his posts, she did notice that anytime he did bring up his own mental health, it wasn't in a 'woe is me' status, it wasn't in a 'feel sympathy for me senpai' status. It was acknowledging the problem, but at the same time listing how you could deal with the problem or how you could work your way through it.

And then it hit her, she remembered how he ranted about your social media persona and your actual persona being one and the same, and as you put your words and thoughts out there, your mind eventually accepted those thoughts as your inner truth. So in other words, he was trying to put out things that actually reflected who he thought he was inside, unlike others who spent so much time building up a fake persona to get cheap likes.

"Maybe there is more to you then I thought..." She admitted to herself.

"...Still doesn't mean I'm going to let you wear ranger panties around the motorhome." She thought as she closed the computer down and picked up one of Jem's books

_"Hmmm, Horus rising, Horus Heresy Book 1? Eh looks interesting." _

* * *

**Jem and Nala**

"I GOT ONE! I GOT ONE!" Nala said as Jem was excited and standing behind her as she was reeling in a big fish.

"Hell yeah! Come on you got this!" Jem couldn't believe how excited he was.

They had found the nice little pond not too long after Jem had given her a piggy back ride, luckily it was nothing but nice soft grass, so she didn't have to worry about hurting her feet in the woods. And now he was watching her struggling to pull in a fish as she was also trying to keep her stetson from falling off.

"Ugh! This sucker weighs a ton!" She said as she was not expecting the fish to put up a fight.

"That just means he'll taste all the better!" Jem said wondering what she had hooked.

This pond they were at right now had a fair share of small mouth bass, large mouth bass, crappie, bluegills, catfish, and carp. But right now that didn't matter, because right now whatever was on the other end, it had to be big no matter what.

"WOAH!" She said as she felt herself being pulled in.

"UGHHHH! A little help?!" She said as he helped her hat stay steady.

"I meant help me pull it in!" She pouted as Jem smiled and laughed.

"Nooo way Nala, this is your big moment, you got the fish on the hook, its your job to bring it in." He said as he just held her hat in place.

"But he's heavy!"

"Thats the best part! Now come on, you almost got him!"

Nala despite the fact she was fighting a big ass fish right now had never felt so relaxed in her life. For once she didn't have to worry about food, she didn't have to worry about heading to work, she didn't even have to worry about all the chores she had to do at the orphanage before it burned down. For the first time in her life, she had free time and she didn't have to worry about enjoying it!

"HNNNNNNNNHHH!" She gave one final pull of the line.

"WOAH!" She said as she looked at the end of it.

Just to see a big ass catfish about the length of Jem's forearm, and nice and fat.

"Hell yeah! Look at that guy!" Jem was impressed.

"Wow!" Nala immediately went to go touch him.

"Woah now! Hold on!" Jem said as he stopped her.

"What?"

"Nala, you got to me be careful, here give me your hands, what you wanna do is place them right here and here, that way you have their spines and their fins secure so if they try to get out, you won't get pricked." He said positioning her hands so she wasn't in danger.

"Okay, now stay like that! I need to get a picture!" He said as he got his camera and Nala's tail started wagging.

"Should I pose?" She asked excited to have her picture taken.

"Do what you want kid, just keep a firm grip on the fish!" He said as he got his phone out.

Nala was having a blast! It may have been something simple, but if there was one thing she enjoyed, she loved having photos of things she had done. Before the orphanage burned down, she had a big collection of photos, granted she couldn't be in most of them because all she had was a tiny disposable camera that didn't have a timer, but for once she was actually going to see a photo of herself.

"Alright, three...two..." Jem counted down as she held her catch in front of her and mocked taking a bite out of it.

If Jem was allergic to adorableness he would have been dead by now.

CLICK

"And there we go." He said as He went ahead and took Nala's catfish and put it in the 'good eating' container.

Nala grabbed his phone and looked at the photo of herself. Jem was just looking down at her catfish and thinking that instead of burgers he would be cooking catfish, especially since there was nothing better than eating food you had caught or killed yourself. He was thinking maybe a nice cajun seasoning and cooked over a cast iron skillet would be good.

Suddenly he heard sniffling.

He turned to see that Nala was holding his phone, but she had some tears welling up. Immediately as if his protective instincts kicked in, he immediately went over to her.

"Woah hey now, sweetie whats wrong?" He said in a gentle voice as she wiped her eyes.

"Oh, its just...I've never seen a photo of myself before..." SHe said as she was smiling through it.

_"D...Did my heart just skip a beat?" _He said as that was simultaneously adorable but also sad.

"Hey, well I'll tell you what, when we get back, I'll print you out a copy you can keep, how about that?" She gave him a bright smile in return.

"You mean that?!" She got excited as he just smiled back.

"Of course I do." What he wasn't expecting was for her to suddenly jump and wrap her arms around his neck.

"THANK YOU!" She exclaimed as Jem didn't realize how high she could jump as he wasn't expecting her to make it all the way up to his neck.

"You're welcome." He said as he patted her back as he was certainly not expecting this.

"Now what do you say we go back and cook this guy up?" He said as she hopped off of him.

"MHMM! I've never had catfish before." She scratched the back of her head.

"Oh trust me kid, you're going to love it." He said as she hopped on his back for another piggy back ride.

You know, Jem was really enjoying his time with Nala. Seriously the little lioness was so adorable.

**Later that night**

Needless to say, Nala was a big fan of Cajun catfish. Jem didn't know why, but to be honest he did think it was funny, he wondered if it had something to do with her being a lion faunus? After all, Blake did like Tuna a lot and she was a cat faunus, and a lion was technically just a big cat, so did that have something to do with it? Course, his assumption was also based on Alex the lion from the first Madagascar movie enjoying fish after eating steak for the whole movie.

But, sadly, tomorrow was Sunday, and this little getaway ended tomorrow, because he did have to go back to work on monday, but he figured this was a great weekend, so there was nothing to complain about, and it was certainly worth seeing Nala so happy.

Speaking of which, he heard movement from the other side of the tent.

He saw Nala was having a hard time staying still.

"You okay kid?" He asked as she looked over at him.

"I'm just having trouble..." SHe said as she was certain she had picked the wrong place to sleep on.

"If you want, we can change spots." He was certain he could deal with some rough terrain, after all he used to sleep on an LMTV that shook like a crackhead going through withdrawals.

"No its okay! I'm good!" She said as she snuggled more into her sleeping bag.

Course he could still see how uncomfortable she was.

"Come on kid." He said as he picked her up and switched spots.

"What? No I'm good!" She said as she moved back to where she was.

"Kid, you're squirming around like a teenage boy at Kevin Spacey's house." Oh shit that might not have been appropriate to say.

"Huh what?" She said completely oblivious to what he just said.

"Look the point is, you're not going to be able to sleep if you keep trying to readjust." He said as he put her back in the spot he was in.

"Are you sure?" She asked not wanting to interrupt his sleep.

"Kid, trust me, I one time slept with in full kit laying against a spike rock, some uneven ground don't bother me." He said as he laid down in the spot she was in.

"Mister..." She asked as she laid down.

"Yeah?"

"Whats going to happen to me now?" She asked as even though she had so much fun today, it had been a lot to take in.

After all, she did just travel to a new world where she had no home, no job, no friends, and no family.

"Don't worry about it kid, like I said you're not the only one from Remnant to show up here, we'll go back to my home tomorrow, and you can meet the others, and until we figure out whats going on, you can stay with us." He said with a smile.

"How much is rent?" She asked as Jem frowned a bit.

"Kid, don't worry about it, look for the rest of your stay here, don't worry about money, just try to have fun."

"Uhmmm, well...how?" She asked as Jem looked at her.

"Well you had fun today right?" He asked as she nodded.

"Look kid, we'll figure it out, I know earlier you said you had been working and hadn't had a lot of free time to yourself, but how about as long as you're here, we just try to give you as many happy memories as we can, alright?" He said as Nala sniffled a bit again.

"Sounds good to me!" She said as she fluffed her pillow a bit.

And immediately as soon as her head hit the pillow she was out like a light.

Jem smiled, for once he had a visitor from Remnant who wasn't crazy in their own way.


	29. A New Beginning

**Okay guys, so I'm doing a bit of writing to finish off this weekend. The truth is I had some extra motivation because I know i won't be able to write for a bit once August hits, and I really wanted to get to this part of the story. As you can tell, I really am going to try and put more character development in here. Doing this with Jem, Nala, and Winter.**

**I'm going to try to incorporate more of RWBY and JNPR but its hard when the focus of the story is Jem and Winter, but like I said I'll try.**

**Now I do try and relate my own experiences in life with Jem, but there are a ton of differences but I want to make some things clear.**

**Jem at times may exhibit some qualities other would consider mary sueish, buuuttt I got some news for you.**

**If I mention Jem is a good singer, its because I actually used to be in Choir and still am a decent singer. If I mention hes fit, keep in mind I am pretty fit. If I mention the books he reads being classical literature, well thats because I believe a man should be well read and educated when it comes to fine literature.**

**I get it, that all sounds like some bullshit you expect out of perfect characters. But the thing is my personal beliefs that I try to live up to are that a man should be well read, that he should be strong, that he should have a sense of honor and duty. So when I put those qualities in Jem, its not out of some mary sue power fantasy, its because I genuinally believe those qualities are necessary and something that I myself strive for.**

**If you're not seeking to improve yourself in life, and getting better at being a man, then what the fuck are you doing with your life?**

* * *

**Next Morning in the woods**

"Mister! Mister! Wake up!" Jem was feeling someone poke his face.

"Ugh, five more minutes." He said as Nala was still poking him.

"Plleeeaasse, I'm bored." She said as she had been awake for thirty minutes but didn't know what to do.

"Well okay." He said as he woke up and noticed it was seven in the morning.

"Eh, not a bad time to wake up." He said as he stretched his arms out and reached for his Betsy Ross shirt.

"What are we going to do today?" She asked as she was wearing her stetson.

If Jem knew any better, she didn't even take it off when she went to bed. It was kind of adorable.

"Well, we have to go back home today, but don't worry, there will be a lot to do."

He completely forgot what it was like to be a kid and have endless amounts of energy, hell even though he tried to wake up early to workout and everything, it still had nothing on the amount of energy kids had, he was certain when he was a kid he could spend the whole day running and climbing trees and doing whatever the hell he wanted and still have plenty of energy left over for when it was time to go to bed, meaning he couldn't sleep. But now, if he did something slightly strenuous, he had to take a nap afterwards. Okay it wasn't nearly that bad, but it also wasn't as easy to be an adult and having a limited amount of energy.

"So Mister? Whats your home like?" Nala asked as Jem started to pack up some of the camping gear.

"Eh well, lot of nice open space, great views, and peace and quiet all around." He said as he really didn't know how else to describe it.

"What about the others from Remnant? What are they like?"

"Well, mostly human, but one faunus, and they're huntsman teams from Beacon." He said as she looked confused.

"Wait...so they came from Beacon...but I'm from Menagerie...how the hell did we both get transported here by the same dust?" She asked as something wasn't adding up.

"Honestly kid, I don't really know." He said as he finished packing up the tent and all of his gear.

"Now my truck isn't too far from here, so lets go." Jem said as Nala still didn't have proper footwear for hiking, so she hopped up on his shoulders like a kid and rested her back against his hiking pack.

"Onward!" She said pointing a finger forward.

"..." Jem was honestly trying not to gush over how cute that was.

"Okay kid lets go." He said as he started the hike back.

Again, it wasn't very long, the area he was camping in had a small parking lot close by, mostly because this area was popular with hikers and campers, but hadn't been as popular since the Pandemic of 2020. So Jem mostly got it all to himself.

"And there she is, The Black Dahlia." Jem said pointing to his new and improved pickup truck.

He had finally traded in his old Dakota for a big boy truck. So He bought himself a 2019 Ram Big Horn. It was a tough choice to make because he was also looking at a Jeep Gladiator, and despite liking it, he wanted a more traditional looking pickup, so he went with the Big Horn. But it had everything he wanted on it, Four wheel drive, full size pick up, and it was great for his outdoor adventures, so overall he was very happy with it.

"Why do you call it The Black Dahlia?" Nala asked not being familiar.

"Well because of-" Suddenly Jem cut himself off.

Maybe telling her he got the name from a famous murder case wasn't the best idea.

"Eh, you know what, I misspoke, its actually called the black pearl!" Jem said covering himself.

"Oh? Whats that?"

"It's a ship from a pirate movie."

"OH COOL! CAN WE WATCH IT?!" Nala loved pirate movies.

"Sure! When we get back!" Jem breathed a sigh of relief.

That was so much easier to explain then trying to explain the murder case to her. Even though based on what he had heard so far, her life had been anything but easy, considering how she was an orphan, he still only saw her as that innocent little lion cub who just fell out of the sky, so he was not going to try and potentially scar her for life with tales of a mutilated corpse.

Besides who cares if he had to change the name? The Black pearl was still cool! And it was a friendly topic for her. Granted even though the movies did technically have the living dead, he was certain it was still appropriate for kids! He threw all the hiking gear in the back of the truck and carried Nala over to the back seat of the truck, closed the door and did one final check to make sure he had everything he needed.

"Alright Nala, you ready?" He asked as she nodded her head.

"Yep!" Suddenly he heard something.

GRRRRRRRRRRR

"...Was that your stomach?" He asked as she blushed.

"Uhm...yeah...we didn't eat breakfast yet..." She said as Jem was reminded of that.

Needless to say, both of them had eaten that big ass catfish like it was nothing last night, and then he decided to cook the burgers up anyways, since they were both still hungry. So they ran out of food that night.

"Don't worry kiddo, I'll make us both some breakfast when we get back." He said as he suddenly saw a pinky stuck out from behind.

"Promise?" She said as Jem again felt like his heart was going to explode.

"Promise." He said as he held his pinkie out to her.

"Yay!" She said as Jem seriously just wanted to pick her up and hug her like a teddy bear.

"Don't worry kid, I'll make us a nice breakfast."

He was sure of it.

* * *

**Winter**

Winter couldn't believe what she was doing now. If one were to look at her, you would find nothing out of the ordinary, it was just a woman out on a run in a tank top and short shorts. But there was something a bit different. Winter knew she was going to go for a run this morning, especially since the weather was getting warmer and warmer, so she was going to finally be able to get out of winter clothes for running. The issue however was she remembered most of the athletic clothes she had been using were in the wash, and Jem's mother hadn't washed them yet. So she had to find alternative clothes.

Sadly the only options were Jem's clothes since no one in Weiss's friend groups had anything that fit her. Not even Pyrrha who was the closest to her in size had anything that could fit her. But that might have been because her athletic clothing was also in the wash with Winters, so there was nothing they could do. So reluctantly, Winter went to go get some of Jem's clothes.

But the closest thing she got was a pair of his Mjolnir ranger panties. And even though it was a bit embarassing, she didn't have anything else to put on, so she was currently rocking Mjolnir on her left thigh. On top of that she had to borrow one of his shirts. Which was a Rogue Fitness t shirt with 'Don't Weaken' across the front. Luckily she didn't have to do anything like borrow socks or shoes. But it still felt weird wearing the ranger panties.

But she decided not to worry about it, she put in some wireless head phones, borrowed one of Jem's old cell phones which still had spotify, and hit random.

Well, okay, she actually didn't. Mostly because she learned not to do that when connected to his spotify. Needless to say she learned not to do that again after the first time she heard Mayhem's Chainsaw Gutfuck.

But she decided to just hit the playlist labeled 'Gym' there was about a 50/50 chance of getting something catchy or getting something that would scare her.

**_"MAN AND MACHINE AND NOTHING THERE IN BETWEEN! THE FLYING CIRCUS AND A MAN FROM PRUSSIA!" _**Okay this was acceptable for her.

So his Gym playlist was mostly rock, metal, black metal, power metal, and various other types of metal. He also had his playlist simply listed as 'South' which was literally just multiple Hank Williams Jr songs, along with a lot of Southern rock bands. And don't even get her started on the 'Bad day' playlist.

But that was besides the point. She had a cup of coffee and got to running. The music of Sabaton helping her get her adrenaline going.

But that was not the thing that was on her mind. Since she had some time away from Jem, she found it odd that he was invading her thoughts like it was Poland in the 1930s.

The point was he was with her nearly 24/7 when he wasn't at work, after all they did share accommodations, but there was more than that. And it wasn't just the whole walking in on him naked. Granted that was a whooolle other problem in her head. But there was something else. Since she had been here she had maybe seen Jem's soft side maybe on a few rare occassions. She knew it existed, but most of the time she had to deal with the goofball side. He knew she was a serious person so why didn't he try to act more serious to match her? She didn't really know.

_"Can you get the stick out of your ass?" _A voice in the back of her head said and she got mad.

_"I do not have a stick up my rear!" _She said not believing the crudeness of the voice.

She shook her head of the thoughts as she picked up speed. Not even noticing Jem's black truck passing by as she continued her run.

This whole situation was so confusing, she was still in denial about more of the 'primal' thoughts and dreams she had about Jem. It was mostly overshadowed by the fact that she didn't really know a lot about him. She may have been living here for awhile, and yet just last night she learned a lot more about him just by actually stalking his social media pages. And while she could see a hint of what he was like in those, she never saw him doing any of the wise mentor stuff since she was here, granted, he also didn't go COMPLETELY out of his way to act like a parody of himself, but most of the time he was still acting like fun was his main priority in life.

So how did she get the other side out of him? She thought back to that one conversation they had a while ago back when they were discussing JRR Tolkien's work and Jem's philosophy for life and health. She thought about it long and hard, and she remembered how he mentioned that sometimes he did things to irritate her because she made it so well known that she disliked some of the things he did and didn't bother to hide it.

But then there were other times when she was relaxed and they would talk like normal people. Almost as if the tension from having to deal with conflict made him act a certain way in order to prevent him from having to open up to-

Winter stopped dead in her tracks.

Come to think of it, they had only had their good conversations when he had been completely relaxed, but if there was tension in the air, he wouldn't talk about anything like that, and would seek to distract her with annoyances. And that was when it hit her, while he was certainly not free of guilt, she saw that obviously the way she was acting to her host wasn't usually the kind that warranted nice conversations, but usually a Bert and Ernie type of situation, where the goofy one distracted the smart one.

"Now that I think about it, most of the time when he says or does something I find irritating, I usually don't let it go..." She usually just tried to get him to stop.

"...Well, he does still irritate me, but, maybe if I get him in a more relaxed setting, we could learn a lot about each other." Winter started to think.

Most of the times at night right before bed, Jem was pretty relaxed, and she rememebred how usually before bed, both would be reading their books in silence, occassionally talking about what they were reading. It was nice and peaceful, and Winter was certain she could ask Jem more about himself without it devolving into pure annoying antics.

"Hmmm, I'll try later tonight." Because Winter would admit, she had an interest in Jem ever since she saw his softer side on his instagram.

She turned around and started making her way back, a new wave of determination hitting her. She knew it wouldn't take her long to run back, after all, she was much faster than the average human on this planet. So all she had to do was keep her current pace.

_"What should I ask him about though?" _She figured she would have to do it in a way that didn't sound alarming.

After all, she told him she had stalked his instagram before, and he didn't take it too well and thought it was creepy. So he doubt that telling him that again would do her any good. But that started another problem. How did she talk to him about his soft side? She needed something to bring it up without sounding creepy? But what was she going to do?

She saw his motorhome and slowed down to a walking pace. As she got closer and closer she smelled the sweet aroma of food cooking.

"Hmmm, smells like bacon, eggs, and pancakes." She smiled a bit at that.

Jem must have gotten back from his camping trip and was cooking breakfast. Hopefully he was making some for her too. Despite her little incident with eating too much bacon, she would admit it was good, and she did enjoy his cooking.

And the fact that his protein pancake recipe was actually good and healthy made her happy.

But something was different she could have sworn she heard Jem whistling a tune. That was new. She also heard him laughing a bit as she heard the sound of food cooking.

"Odd, he's never that happy when he cooks, I guess that camping trip did him good?" Winter said to herself as she went up to the door of the motorhome.

_"There you go! Nice bit of eggs, pancakes and some bacon! Didn't I tell you it would be good?" _She heard Jem's voice say as she got confused.

"_Thank you! It looks so good!" _She heard another voice say, and she got even more confused.

Who was that?

"Morning Jem I was-" Winter took a step in and froze as she saw what was going on.

She saw Jem ruffling a little girls hair...a little FAUNUS girls hair as he was serving her breakfast. ANd she was nothing but all smiles.

Both heard the door open and both saw who had just peaked her head in.

"Oh hey Winter! You're ba-" Jem greeted but was cut off as he noticed Winter was wearing his Mjolnir ranger panties.

"Wow you look..." He was actually surprised at how good she looked.

"Mister can I eat now?" Nala asked as he looked down at her.

"Of course Sweetie, looks like I need to cook for three anyways." He said with a warm smile as Winter couldn't believe what she was seeing.

It wasn't the fact that he was cooking, it wasn't the fact that he looked so warm and loving when he was talking to that little girl.

It was the fact it was a little FAUNUS girl...on Earth...when they were the only ones from Remnant here...

"Oh...Yeah...uhm Winter...we got a lot to talk about." Jem said as he went over and started cooking more food.

Oh that was an understatement.


	30. A Chance To Be A Kid

**Alright guys, so heres the thing. I only got about four months left in the army. And I just got back from JRTC. And well, it was a total shit show, we had cases of covid, cases of mono, a shit ton of heat casualties, a helicopter dropped a howitzer, and of course the fucking hurricane hit us.**

**Literally was the work of Loki.**

**But some good news, I'm working on my terminal leave packet, and I've also been talking with the Anchorage Police Department of Alaska to go up there to test to become a police officer up there. Which would get me the fuck out of Illinois.**

**Anyways, some more good news, my final student loan is at 2500 right now, so I've almost got that whipped. I'm also getting a slight pay raise before I get out, so thats extra money in my pocket. And with any luck by the time I move to Alaska I'll have either a new Jeep or a new Dodge Ram, it all depends on what suits my needs best.**

* * *

Winter had been quiet, after Jem had made her a serving of eggs, bacon and some pancakes. He put on Alaska State Troopers and sat next to Nala who was happily digging into her breakfast without a care in the world. Winter had never been so confused in her life. Had this girl shown up with them? No, she would have noticed by now. More importantly she wasn't even in the group when they came. So where did she come from? Winter had never been so confused in her life. Especially since she knew the only way they all got here was due to some kind of dust accident, and the odds of someone actually figuring out the mixture this fast would be..

Wait a minute, she remembered how her drone had footage of their campsite. But even then, whoever found the footage couldn't possibly have reversed engineered the dust THAT fast right? That was some deus ex machina bullshit right there! And even so, even if they did reverse engineer it, what would be the point of sending a child through? Again! More questions than answers.

"Would you like some more bacon?" Jem asked Nala.

"YES PLEASE!" She said as Jem threw some more bacon on her plate.

"There you go little one." He said as Nala just giggled as Winter was still processing what was going on.

"Oh yeah...uhm, Winter this is Nala, Nala this is Winter." Jem said as Nala smiled and waved.

"Hi Miss Winter!" She said as Winter had to admit, the little girl was adorable.

Even when she had a piece of bacon hanging out of her mouth.

"Mr. Jem, is this your girlfriend?" At this Winter sputtered and Jem laughed.

"Nope, just another out of place traveler like yourself." He said as Nala got sparkly eyes.

"You're also from Remnant?!" Nala was excited to see she wasn't alone.

Winter just nodded, her brain still shut own by what she was seeing. None of this was making any logical sense in her brain.

Wait a minute, something else wasn't making sense. If Nala was a faunus and was from Remnant, wouldn't she recognize Winter as a schnee? She knew about her familys reputation amongst the faunus and couldn't believe this little girl didn't recognize her, she wasn't glaring, which meant that she must not know who Winter was. So either she was very polite and hiding her malice, or she legit had no idea who she was.

"So uhm, Nala came here in an explosion when dust fell on her, from what I could gather." Jem said as Nala was taking a few bites out of her pancakes.

"Mhmm! I was just trying to run away from the men in black, and next thing I know, I hit that shelf of dust, and Kablooey! Here I am!" She said as she took a bite out of a sausage link.

Well, that helped clear some of Winter's questions up, well except for the men in black part, and the part about Nala somehow having access to a dust facility, and somehow stumbling across what could only be a secret project? Actually the more she thought about it, all it did was create more questions!

"Ooooff, I haven't eaten that good in a long time." Nala said leaning back and yawning like a sleepy kitty.

"..." Winter couldn't explain it, but she felt a sudden need to hug Nala, but she restrained herself.

"None of makes any sense.." Winter couldn't believe it, this was all just too convenient.

"To quote you and the others...Anime logic." Jem smirked as Winter glared.

He was not seriously going to use their own joke against them! And yet he just did!

"WOOF WOOF!" Nala's tail perked up at that.

"Could it be?" She asked as she suddenly saw the door to the motorhome burst open.

Only to see a big fluffy dog with a kitten riding on top of it with their tails wagging.

"DOGGY! KITTY!" Nala suddenly zoomed over and started playing with both Zeus and Kirby.

Jem was looking at the three of them playing around like little balls of fluff and he could think of only one thing.

_"So apparently Blake is just the odd feline faunus out when it comes to being afraid of dogs." _

"So cute!" Nala said as she was currently using one hand to pet Kirby under the chin and her other hand to give Zeus a belly rub.

"Nooooooooo! I told you you don't ride on top of his he-" Blake came to confront Kirby and saw Nala.

"Huh? What? Whadda?" She was confused as she saw the lion tail coming out of the girl.

Nala meanwhile looked up and saw Blake's cat ears.

"Oh cool! You're a faunus too!" She said as suddenly Blake had no idea what the fuck to think.

"Uhm...what? When? HOW?" She asked as she had never seen this little girl before, and she was certain she didn't come with them.

Blake would have noticed another faunus running around.

"I'm Nala! Whats your name?" Nala asked as she shook Blakes hand.

"...Blake..." She was still having trouble processing this.

"Nala, why don't you go play with Zeus and Kirby outside for a bit?" Jem asked as she nodded and proceeded to go play with the doggo and kitten.

"EXPLAIN." Blake and Winter said as soon as she left.

Jem sighed as he took a sip of his coffee.

"Well to be honest, I'm still confused, so you both know I went on my little weekend getaway to go camping, I had just found a nice place to set up camp, I was cooking up some steak, and then the next thing I know, I see a big ass flash, and I see her faceplant into the ground in front of me. And the first thing she did after realizing she wasn't home was ask me for a steak...and well, I couldn't say no to her, look at how adorable she is!" Jem said pointing to the little lion faunus who was currently being licked by both Zeus and Kirby and giggling while her tail wagged.

"..." Winter had to admit that was one of the most adorable things she had ever seen.

"But how? How could she possibly have gotten here?" Blake asked.

"Well theres anime lo-"

"That doesn't work for you, you're not an anime character." Blake said as Jem groaned.

"I may as well be because right now it seems like I'm in some bullshit manga like Love Hina where the character gets screwed over." At this Blake shifted her attention.

"Thats a romance manga..."

"Yeah a bad one where the women abuse the fuck out of the main character, seriously I hate that anime trope, if that happened in real life, people would be calling the cops." Jem honestly couldn't stand when the male characters in manga and anime got their asses kicked all the time by mentally unstable teenage girls.

"Fair enough, but your life isn't a romance manga." Blake pointed out.

"Yeah fair enough, but the point is at this point I may as well be an anime protagonist with all the crazy shit going on."

"Again I see your point, but the point is anime logic doesn't work for you."

Jem grumbled as he decided not to argue any futher. Odin knows they were being dicks about it.

"So you see a little girl appear out of nowhere and your first reaction is to feed her? Your grandma would be proud." Winter said as Jem puffed his chest out in pride.

"Honestly shes a good kid, plus, when she started explaining to me her...well her life story, I couldn't help myself, she needed some help and some time to relax." Blake looked confused.

"What do you mean?"

"She...she told me she's an orphan and she's been working on Menagerie at a dust store." At this Blake went silent.

"Child labor laws aren't a thing in Remnant?" He asked as Blake sighed.

"It's not that they're not a thing, its just that with the amount of orphans on Menagerie, sometimes its inevitable, either they work or starve, not everyone can afford to take in another mouth to feed, as much as my family hates it, its really hard to feed everyone when money runs low and disasters keep happening." She said remembering the amount of storms and disasters that happened on her home island.

"Shame..." Jem said as he looked out the window.

"Well, she's here now, so lets just try to help her be a kid." He said as he walked outside to go play with her.

"..." Winter was quiet as she had never seen Jem this serious about something.

"Surprised?" Blake asked drawing Winter out of her stupor.

"Huh what?"

"I mean, I haven't seen this side of him, its almost kind of fatherly." She said as Winter watched how Jem was now playing with Nala and Zeus.

"Its actually refreshing..." Winter admitted there was something appealing about it.

"It is, I mean I know he can be serious, but he also seems to act high on life, this time he seems to be reeling it in a bit.

Winter looked out and noticed how Jem was now swinging Nala by her arms in a circle.

"That doesn't look safe." Winter said feeling a little worried.

"Nah, look at her shes having a blast, my dad used to do that all the time." Blake remembered those times fondly.

"Its peaceful, to think we're in a world with no faunus discrimination, this is the first time I've been able to truly relax without having to worry about anything." Blake said as Winter raised an eyebrow.

"What are you talking about? You still have to hide, the humans here wouldn't understand."

"Actually, most of them just think I'm a cosplayer, or something called a tiktoker...I don't know what it is, but I'm not sure I like it." Blake was just being honest.

"My point is, its kind of refreshing, this world isn't perfect, and its certainly had its problems, but if this world can get through time periods that make ours look like a bad day at school, then we're all going to be just fine."

Blake started to walk outside.

"Where are you going?"

"Well...Jem's grandmother is cooking a tuna casserole and asked me to taste test it." If one looked closely you could see Blake's eyes were lighting up like a kid on Christmas.


	31. Never Forget

**Wanted to post this chapter today in remembrance of 9/11. As hard as it it to believe, I know some of you reading this weren't old enough to remember. But I was about six years old. I think its why i wa****nted to join the military, and I think in a way its also what motivates me to also want to become a police officer.**

**So, in remembrance.**

**Never Forget all the firefighters, police officers, and innocent people who died that day.**

* * *

"Where's Mr. Jem?" Nala asked with a yawn as she woke up with the early morning sun peeking in.

Winter turned to see she was wearing an oversized 101st airborne t shirt as pyjamas.

"He had to get an early start today Nala, he made your breakfast before he left." Winter said as it was still weird to realize that they had a faunus child staying with them now.

Winter didn't have a problem with faunus at all. Far from it. She just found it odd how quickly Jem had taken a liking to her. It was kind of cute. It was like they had known each other in a previous incarnation, but that had to have been ridiculous. Either way, she admitted, it was kind of cute to see the two interact. The best part was the other day, Jem cooked steak again on the grill. And him and Nala were practically mirroring each other while eating steak, almost like that scene from Jaws, but a hundred times better. It had already been a week since Nala had arrived, so needless to say the little lion girl was growing on her too. But not as much as Jem. Jem seemed to have a soft spot for her.

"Oh yay!" Nala said as she sat down.

Winter smiled a bit as he noticed that Jem had taken the liberty of putting Nala's breakfast under a heat lamp so that it would still be nice and warm for her when she woke up. Nala's mouth watered as she noticed that there was bacon, eggs, and some nice chocolate chip pancakes for her. The little faunus would admit she was really enjoying her time on this planet. Well, except for the fact that she had never been out in public because of the fact her tail would give her away. Even though that did make her sad, Jem always tried to make it up for her by taking her on some of his outdoor adventures and trying to help her have fun at home.

Winter calmly sipped her tea as she ate her own breakfast, that surprisingly Jem had also made for her before he left. But the thing that surprised her was just WHAT he cooked for her. While Jem was a health nut much like herself, he didn't nearly take it as serious as she did. But this morning he had gone the extra mile. He made her protein pancakes with some mixed berries on the side, along with whole wheat toast with a light layer of cinammon, as well as some green tea and turkey bacon. Winter had been surprised.

But he told her that as long as he was making breakfast for Nala, he decided to make Winter some breakfast too. She had to admit, it was actually a sweet gesture.

"Ms. Winter?" Nala asked as Winter was sipping her tea.

"Yes?" She said between sips.

"Are you Mr. Jem's girlfriend?"

PFFFFFFFFFFFFTTTTTTTTTTTTT

Winter coughed and accidentally spit her tea out back into the cup.

"Koff Koff! I'm sorry, what?" She asked as she wasn't sure if she heard her right.

"Well, you two live together, and he made you breakfast? Are you his girlfriend?" She asked with that innocent head tilt.

"Oh! No! No of course not!" Winter said as she sputtered out her reply.

"Huh? Really? You say that like it would be a bad thing?" Nala seemed confused.

"Well uh, hes just not my type Nala..." Winter said as Nala got even more confused.

"Why not?" She asked as she didn't understand.

"Because..." Winter tried to rack her brain for answers.

But nothing was coming to mind.

"Its just, he cooked you breakfast, that seems like a nice thing to do." Nala pointed out.

"Yes it was..." Winter did not like where this was going.

"And you both live together..."

"Well, thats not my choi-"

"That and-" Nala was about to go on but Winter stood up.

"Uhm, I have to use the bathroom really quick." She said as she ran out of the trailer to use the bathroom in the actual house.

"Huh, wonder what thats about?" Nala asked as she looked down at her pancake.

"Awwwwww, he made a smiley face for me!" Nala cheered in happiness as she took a big bite.

Winter ran to the house to the bathroom and even though she didn't really need to use it, she decided as long as she was in there, she may as well take a shower just to clear her head. She stripped out of her clothes and stepped into the shower letting the hot water run over her as she began to wash her hair.

_"Why couldn't I think of anything to say to her?" _Winter thought to herself as she couldn't understand why she couldn't refute Nala's points.

_"Then again, she did have a lot of things to say." _Winter hadn't been prepared for all the questions.

Maybe it was something else she had to think about.

* * *

**JEM**

Jem was sitting outside his old elementary school. Some would find it odd what he was doing, but he explained why he was doing it to one of his old teachers. He could remember he was here on this day 19 years ago when one of the most major events of his life happened.

He could remember he had nearly missed the bus that day, and he was this close to having to get his mom to drive him here. But he remembered the day ended fairly quickly. He remembered how his teacher told them all that their parents were coming to pick them up. Which he didn't understand. He could remember his mom came and picked him up, and he thought he was getting out of school for the day. But he couldn't find a way to celebrate, because he saw how scared his mom looked.

He remembered how he got home and he saw his Dad home for once. It didn't make any sense because he knew his dad was always working at the factory during the week, so why was he suddenly back home? And then he saw what his dad had put on.

He saw the image of the towers burning. At first he thought it was just an accident.

And then the second plane hit.

He remembered his dad clenched his fist, and for the first time in his life, it was probably the first time he had seen his dad cry. His mom broke down, and Jem couldn't help but feel the same.

The rest of the day went the same, everyone was trying to figure out what was going on. Nobody was sure if anything else was going to happen. And when news came that the pentagon was hit, he remembered how scared his mom was.

He didn't go back to school the next day. His dad didn't go back to work the next day. It was almost as if his small town had shut down for awhile.

It was all he saw for days on end was more footage and more details coming out. Even though he was only six, it left a deep impression in him.

He could remember as he got older, his reasoning for joining the military only grew stronger. That day instilled him a sense of loyalty and duty to his country. He remembered how his grandfather was a veteran, his dad was a veteran, and a former police officer before he retired and went to work at a factory, in a way it helped solidify his belief that service to ones country was not only honorable, but it was essential.

He looked over his phone at the text messages he was getting from his local police department about the recruiting process.

He put his phone away and he got in his truck.

To think that one day had made such an impact on his life.

A lot of people say Never Forget but don't mean it.

But to him it really was a day he would never forget.

The world he was born into no longer existed.

But it was up to him and people like him to ensure that they could create a world that would be better for everyone.

* * *

**Back home**

Winter and Nala saw Jem walk back into the trailer. For once he was looking solemn, Winter had never seen him like this. Nala didn't even like the way he was looking right now. She was so used to seeing him happy, it didn't feel right to see him sad.

"Jem?" Winter asked as she walked over to him.

"Are you ok-" She was not expecting what happened next.

Jem hugged her.

Usually she would push him away. But this time was different. His grip was soft, and she could almost feel tears on her shoulder.

She held him close, thinking that he must have really needed this.

Nala seeing that Mr. Jem was crying, immediately came over and joined the hug. Even if it was just around his midsection.

While the day was full of pain and sadness. The one thing everyone had to remember was at the end of the day you had to be grateful for the things you had.

Tomorrow wasn't guaranteed, and you needed to learn to cherish what you have.

Never forget.


	32. Growing Bonds

**Okay, so here we go another chapter. Now, I have a bit of a problem. As you all know I don't want to rush Winter and Jem's relationship, same with Nala as I don't want her to be calling Jem 'Daddy' straight out the gate. But truth is, since I introduced her in the story, I think I might have to rush it a bit. But I'm trying to slowly build it up as best as I can.**

**Winter's not going to fall in love with Jem overnight, and Nala isn't going to call him Dad overnight, but I am damn sure going to try and make it work.**

* * *

Needless to say Jem had ended up sleeping most of the day yesterday. He didn't sleep well the night before and he made up for it. Course the surprising thing was he actually fell asleep while still hugging Winter and Nala. And the two had put him back in his bed to let him relax. Nala was a bit worried because she didn't know why Mr. Jem was so upset. And Winter didn't want to have to explain it to her. But turns out she didn't have to. When she turned on the tv, she noticed how most of the channels were playing remembrance memorials that gave Nala a brief look into why Jem had been so upset.

Needless to say, Winter didn't want Nala to see it, so she sent her outside to play with Zeus and Kirby. But she learned a lot about it from the footage. But as soon as it had stopped playing, she did more research on it.

She was shocked to find that a world they assumed was so peaceful had been plagued so much by death. She learned that Jem's country had been at war for nearly his whole life. Granted, he said he himself never got the chance to deploy. And that the fighting was mostly being down by special operations groups. Deployments hadn't been happening for a long time. After all, he completed his whole contract without deploying. Not for lack of trying mind you.

Course, then the more research she did into this world, she learned this world was a lot more bloody than Remnant. Sure there was Grimm and there was the great war between the faunus and the humans. But there was a lot of history missing from Remnant. And yet Earth's history was well documented.

From wars that spread across continents, to civil wars, and then to the world wars, this world had seen its fair share of bloodshed.

This place wasn't as peaceful as she originally thought.

"Uhhhh." She heard Jem wake up as he was wearing a Burzum sweater and a pair of Pyjamas with a logo of the wolf cross on it.

"You sleep well?" She asked as he nodded.

"Really well." He said as he walked over to the pot of coffee and poured himself a cup.

"You feeling alright?" Winter didn't mean to pry but he seemed upset yesterday.

"Oh yeah, I'm fine, just you know, a bit of an emotional day yesterday." He said as he took a seat against the chair in the motorhome and helped himself to some eggs, bacon and some-

Wait, who cooked breakfast?

"Did you make breakfast?" He asked as it didn't seem real.

"Well, you've been doing it the last few times, I figured I would return the favor." She said as he looked over at his plate.

"...You actually cooked real bacon." He said taking a bite and noticing it was indeed pig.

"Well, as much as I prefer turkey bacon, I figured this would be better for you." She said with a light smile.

"...I mean I like turkey bacon too, but thank you Winter, this is really nice." He said returning the smile as this was probably the nicest Winter had ever been to him.

"However, the pancakes are a healthier option." She said referring to a pancake mixture with less calories but more nutrients.

"Thats fine, did you use the ghost pancake batter protein?"

"No? I didn't even know they made that?" She asked as Jem laughed.

"It's some good stuff." He said leaning back and enjoying his breakfast.

Winter took a seat next to him with her own breakfast and noticed how much calmer he was today. Granted she knew yesterday was a bit of a rollercoaster for him. But he seemed to be just enjoying the peace and quiet, granted, he did have his set morning routine where he took time for relaxation and meditation. But this was different, he looked outside and saw the birds chirping as the sun was peeking out over the trees and took a bite of his breakfast before opening up his phone and connecting to his wireless speaker. The sound of Wardruna's Lyfjaberg played and echoed throughout the motorhome as Jem hummed to it.

Winter took a quick look at his Mjolnir pendant, a thick bronze Hammer with an icelandic bindrune carved into it on a necklace of beads with Runes burnt into them. Winter admitted, she was confused by his religion of choice, as while there were people who believed in gods back home, they were mostly considered stories. And to see that Jem seemed to follow a religion most would consider crazy but also was not common in this world, it surprised her.

Especially considering how Catholic his family was.

"You alright?" He asked as she snapped out of it.

"Huh?" She didn't know what was going on.

"Well, you kind of started staring off at my chest and spaced out." He said as she shook her head.

"Sorry, I must have gotten lost in thought." She had no idea why she was suddenly noticing all these little things about Jem.

"Where's Nala? I haven't seen her today?" He asked as usually she was up and eating breakfast.

"Oh shes spending time with Blake today, I think its comforting for her to know she's not the only faunus here." Winter said as she took a sip of her tea.

Jem's phone went off as he checked it and noticed he had an email.

"Oh cool." He said as he typed something and sent it back.

"What was that?" She asked as Jem took a sip of coffee.

"My local police department, they offered to proctor the test I need to become a police officer." He asked as Winter raised an eyebrow.

"I didn't know you were planning that." She said as he shrugged.

"Well, seemed like the thing to do, issue is getting the department I want to go to to agree with it." Now that confused her.

"Why?"

"Because I'm trying to go to Alaska." He said as she was surprised. **(1)**

"That's...really far from here." She knew for a drive that was about 32 hours away.

"Yeah, but honestly I need the fresh start, and family's really supportive of it, especially since none of us want to stay in Illinois." He chuckled at that last bit.

"Still, wouldn't it be a bit hard to do now?"

"Nah, not at all, I mean I could move everything up there no pr-" Then he thought about it.

"Oh, you mean with everything involving you guys?" He asked as she nodded.

"Well, honestly I don't see the problem, I'll probably get an apartment in Anchorage, and you guys could still live with the family, my dad already is talking about buying a house up there, so I get the feeling it wouldn't be a problem." He said as Winter asked another question.

"What about Nala?" She asked as Jem went quiet.

"Well, she can still stay with the family, besides, hearing about her life back home...I really don't want her to go back to that." Jem said as he sighed as he remembered what Nala told him.

"But how do you think she would handle another move?" She asked as Jem chuckled.

"Well to be honest, I already told her about my plans." He almost seemed to chuckle in pride as he thought about it.

"What did she say?"

"Well, she asked me what I was going to do for fun up there, and I was honest and told her I plan to take up hunting." He paused for a bit at the end.

"And then?"

"She got really excited when I told her elk meat is delicious."

Winter chuckled at that. If there was one thing she noticed about Jem and the little lion girl over the time she had been here. The two had bonded over their shared loved of meat. Jem wanted to start hunting while he was here, but sadly, he had to save money for the move to Alaska first. Which was still a long ways away.

"Can I ask you something?" She asked as he nodded.

"Yeah sure go ahead."

"Well, this may sound odd, but, I talked to your mother, and she cleared out a bedroom so I could stay in the house now if I wanted."

"Thats nice."

"Well, I was going to ask, do you mind if I stay here?" She asked as Jem looked up surprised.

"Really? Why?" That honestly surprised him.

"Well, to be honest, I personally think it would be better if Nala was to take the room in the house. All things considered, we don't have a lot of room in here." Winter was partially telling the truth.

"Oh yeah that works, besides knowing my mom as soon as you said you had to think about it, she already started decorating it for Nala." Suddenly Nala burst through the doors.

"Mister Jem! Winter! You're not going to believe this! Come check it out!" She said as she suddenly grabbed both Winter and Jem's hands and started to drag them out.

"Woah! Huh, so this is what it felt like to be my dad." Jem didn't even notice how Winter twitched a bit at that.

The fact that a little girl had grabbed both of their hands and was dragging them to show them something like a daughter excited to show here parents something she had found was not lost on her.

It was almost blinding the speed she got them both into the house and Jem noticed something right away.

"Wait, the room you cleared away was my old bedroom!" Jem said as his mom shrugged.

"Well, its being put to good use this way!" His mom said as Nala flung the door opened.

"Oh dear...mom..." He said as he suddenly noticed just HOW much stuff Nala had.

First was the work station with a small netbook that Jem recognized as the little dell inspiron mini he had as his first laptop. But it had been obviously reprogrammed and refurbished so it was like he never used it...which was probably a good thing considering he got it as a teenager and we all know what teenagers do with access to the internet. He felt disgusted as he realized he hated how younger him got addicted to that crap.

He also noticed that while they got rid of his old queen size bed, she still had a smaller full size bed with a bed frame that also acted as a dresser and a headboard, which he saw was stacked with books. But the thing that got him most was the decor which was painted pictures of lions.

"Awwww." He said as he couldn't believe they went this far.

"It's adorable." Winter said as even she would admit that.

"We may have gone a little overboard." Pa said as he was still wearing the paint pants.

**_*Sniff*_**

Jem's ears suddenly looked down to see Nala was rubbing her eyes as her hair was falling in front of her face so you couldn't really see anything.

"Woah, hey now kiddo...what's wrong?" He asked as he had Nala look him in the eyes.

She still had a smile on her face, but she was still crying.

"I-Its just...I've never had anyone do this much for me." She said as Jem made a face of understanding.

Again, he never wanted Nala to have to go back to the life she was living, but above all else, he knew that for a kid who was working to provide for herself, it must have been alien for her to be shown this level of kindness. Especially from strangers.

"Hey, its alright, as long as you're here you won't have to worry about all that, just try to enjoy yourself okay?" He asked as she nodded.

"Come here." He said as he knelt down and hugged her softly and she just buried her head into his shoulder and let the tears fall.

Winter clutched her chest very softly as she found the site incredibly heartwarming.

Each day she seemed to be seeing a more sensitive side of Jem, and she admitted to herself mentally that she was liking it.

**THA THUMP**

THAT however was a bit confusing.

**_"_**_Why does my heart feel weird?"_

* * *

**(1) Alaska does take candidates from all of the other states, however, I doubt they would let me do some of the testing here, so I'm most likely going to have to fly out to Anchorage to do it all.**


	33. Fake Love

**Okay, so here we go again. I was having a bit of trouble writing this one because my schedule is weird as shit lately. I literally get out of the army on terminal leave next month. So its been hectic, especially since the green weenie is getting all of its last thrusts in before I'm out entirely. I've had CQ and staff duty who knows how many times these last few weeks, it sucks. **

**But some good news, the plan to move to Alaska is still a go, what I'm doing is applying for anchorage pd first, and then hopefully after a few years apply to be a state trooper.**

**Also down to 1500 in this last student loan. So should be done soon. Selling my old truck to pay for a new jeep or truck, still debating to be honest. Also already found an apartment in Anchorage thats in my price range. **

**I'll be honest though, the closer I get to getting out of the army, I'm worried I'll end up missing the boys. Don't get me wrong, I hate the fuck fuck games, but I think I'll miss the camaraderie. **

**But only time will tell.**

* * *

Needless to say, Nala was enjoying her new room. Ma and Pa seemed to have found all the things she had ever wanted in a bedroom of her own and she had been sleeping like a baby every night. Granted she would sometimes sleep in and forget that she wasn't in Remnant anymore and freak out thinking she overslept for work. But then it would make the fact that she was here even better. Jem completely understood that feeling, he had the same feeling when he got his dd214. And would freak out thinking he was going to miss PT, only for the hamster wheel in his head to start turning and realizing he never had to worry about that.

And then look at his dumb ass now, waking up early to go workout anyways. But he didn't mind, it was kind of nice. It was amazing what you wanted to do now that you didn't want to wake up each morning by giving a 12 gauge shotgun a blowjob.

For legal reasons, thats a joke.

Jem was on his morning jog. Only problem was he was getting distracted because he accidentally played the wrong playlist as he took the jog. And instead of the soundtrack to Doom Eternal blasting to motivate him for a run, he was listening to Special Olympics by Stephen Lynch. Everytime he heard this song he could only think one thing.

"I am so going to hell." He said as he knew the material was horrible, but the way he sang it was hilarious.

He was nearing the end of his run as he saw his parents driveway just about a few meters in front of him. He turned into it and checked the mail really quick to see if there was anything for him. He rolled his eyes as he saw his parents ordered more stuff for Nala from Amazon. Man they were really treating Nala like the grandkid they didn't have.

And Jem could only think of one thing.

Where the hell was all the toys and being spoiled rotten when he was a kid? He remembered as a kid, his dad kept a big ass leather belt on display to put the fear of god into them if they ever fucked up. Nowadays, his Dad would literally join Nala on her antics. Granted she was a good girl and only pulled harmless pranks, whereas him and his brother had some Gomez/Fester relationship where they loved each other but also tried to kill each other.

_"Why is your brother missing two teeth?"_

_"He shaved my head in my sleep!"_

_"Alright, I'm whooping both your asses!"_

Good times. Good times indeed.

"Why the hell is Alex calling me again?" He said as he noticed his phone was going off and checked the caller ID.

The called ID photo was a picture of Alex wearing a hooters tanktop his girlfriend got him. Jem face palmed as he remembered that Alex's girlfriend had paid him 50 bucks to have the caller ID image be that. Because for some weird ass reason, she was on that part of 4chan obsessed with Femboy hooters. Which he frankly found disturbing.

"The 50 bucks wasn't worth it." He answered the phone and brought his pace down to a light jog.

"Whats up?"

_"Jeeeemmmmmmm, I just wanted to check in on you!" _Alex said in his typical valley girl voice.

"Alex, most of the time you call me its usually to check in on your progress in the gym, or to tell me whatever gossip you heard, so which is it?" He asked wondering why he was calling him.

_"Neither of those things! I just wanted to tell you that my honey bunny is talking to Melania again."_ At that, Jem's blood went cold.

"I thought I made it clear I didn't want to see that girl again!"

"_Oh she's convinced you just need to try again."_

"What part of no means no does she not understand?"

_"Oh Jemmy, once women are convinced they're right, they'll do anything they can to prove you wrong, she's convinced you and Melania would be a good couple!" _Alex said with a giggle.

"She handcuffed me to a bed, and tried to make me a furry, on top of that, she keeps making fake facebook accounts to stalk my page." Jem had gotten at least ten friend requests from fake profiles she had made.

_"Well don't worry hunny, I got your back, Melania still doesn't know where you live at least. But my girlfriend did tell her your usual hangouts." _Alex said as Jem groaned.

"Oh come on! The gym is my sacred space where I go to get away from all this bullshit!"

_"Sorry Hun, but she blabbed to her, so might have to avoid her after work :(" _Jem was not a happy camper.

"DAMN IT!" Jem said as he could have sworn he heard a giggle over the phone.

_"Don't worry hun, I have a plan." _The femboy of wisdom spoke.

"Alex I swear to god whatever you-" He was cut off by the boy again.

_"Just take Winter with you to the gym now!" _

"...Huh?"

_"Jem, think about it, you and Winter already spend so much time together right?" _Alex said as Jem didn't like where this was going.

"Well yeah but-"

_"So just pretend she's your girlfriend until Melania leaves you alone! Eventually she'll get the message." _

Jem thought it through for a second...

And just a second.

"No."

"_Commmeeee on, why not?"_

"Winter would never go for it." He said as he was standing outside his motorhome, unaware of who was listening.

_"What makes you say that?" _

"Look, Winter and I are finally starting to have a normal friendship, I don't want to make things awkward by saying 'Hey can you pretend to be my girlfriend so I can get rid of a creepy furry stalker?' I won't do that for a few reasons." Jem said as the person inside the motorhome was now blushing.

Winter could hear the whole conversation, and she would be lying if she said she wasn't listening intently to hear what Jem had to say.

_"Oh come on, it wouldn't be so bad." _

"That besides the point, I just can't do it!" Jem said as Winter felt slightly insulted.

_"Oh come on! Why not?" _

"Well it wouldn't be right, being in a pretend relationship, its not right." Jem said as Winter raised a brow.

"_How?"_

_"_Look, you know me, I'm old school when it comes to relationships, I don't like flings, and I don't like relationships you can throw away at any time. If I'm dating someone, I'm in it for the long haul, and sure even if I told her the reason for it and she agreed to it, even knowing she doesn't feel bad when it suddenly ends, to me it would feel like I'm lying to someone I care about." Now that made Winter stop for a minute.

_"What does he mean 'care about?'" _

"_Awwwww, so you do like her!" _Alex hit the jackpot.

"Not that way Alex! She's just turning into a good friend ever since we put our differences aside." Jem defended himself as Winter felt a bit disappointed.

"Look, my point is to me one of the worst things you can do is pretend to like someone, I've been down that road before, I know how it sucks to be the person on the receiving end of that, and I'll be damned if I do that to someone! Even though Winter doesn't like me back, its still against my own morality to pretend to like someone, that shit hurts!" Jem said as he hung up the phone and went inside the motorhome.

Winter thinking quickly, ran back to her part of the motorhome and pretended she was just waking up.

"Morning Winter." He said as he came back in and filled up a coffee pot and started to brew some BRCC.

"Morning Jem." She feigned being sleepy as she still pondered over what he said earlier.

"I'm surprised, you're usually up earlier." He said as Winter twitched a bit.

"Uhm, I felt like sleeping in today." She said as Jem raised an eyebrow.

"That sounds pretty sus for you." He said as her eyes widened.

Did he catch on?

"I mean shit, I've only seen you sleep in once, and you freaked out and tried to catch up on your daily schedule by multitasking." He said as she was worried he knew that she was snooping on him.

"Which can only mean one thing..." He said as he narrowed his eyes and got closer.

"IMPOSTER!" He said as he booped her nose and her brain went blank.

"...OH YOU GOT TO BE KIDDING ME?!" She groaned as he made another reference to that damn game.

"Hey, you had fun last night." He joked as they all got together to play Among us.

"Only when I was the imposter! You kept killing me everytime you were the imposter." She grumbled.

"Yeah cause it was funny!"

"You're an asshole! You couldn't have killed the others first any of the times we played?"

"Well no, because you were the only one wanting to rage quit."

Jem just smirked as he did enjoy this banter with Winter.

"It didn't help that whenever I wanted to kill you, someone always called an emergency meeting so I couldn't do it." Winter was still salty about that.

"What can I say, I've always been lucky." He said with a smile on his face as Winter had been frustrated trying to kill him last night.

"Come on Winter, its all in good fun, here, heres some coffee." He said as he poured her a cup and she relaxed a little.

Believe it or not, Winter was actually enjoying the banter. While Jem could be an idiot at times, she was amazed at how fun it could be to just let your hair down and act silly from time to time. Granted, Jem took it to a whole new level, especially if his buddies were around. Winter took a sip and contemplated how she was going to ask Jem about the conversation he just had with Alex without making it obvious that she was eavesdropping.

"So...you seem frustrated? Was the run rough?" She said as Jem looked confused.

"Nah, just some shenanigans popping up again." He said as he took another sip of his coffee.

"Like what?"

Jem hesitated for a bit.

"Uh, you know that one creepy girl Alex's girlfriend tried to hook me up with?"

"Yeah what about her?"

"Well, Alex is trying to convince me I should get a pretend girlfriend so she'll stop stalking me." He said as Winter pressed further.

"So? What did you say?"

"I told him no, simple as that." Jem said as Winter slightly narrowed her eyes.

_"Bullshit, he suggested me and you wouldn't." _Winter had no idea why she felt insulted.

"Why not?"

"Well...its kind of personal."

"We have time, besides its just me." Winter said taking a sip after she added some cream.

"Well, I just don't think its right to get into a pretend relationship." Jem said as she knew that much.

"Why?" She asked as Jem hesitated for a second.

"Well, because I know how it feels to be on the receiving end of that, and I also know how it feels for it to go horrrribbbbly wrong." Jem said as he looked lost in thought.

"Like?" Winter was genuinely curious now.

"Thats a long story." Jem said as he wasn't sure about telling her this.

"I have time." She said with a small smile to try and reassure him.

In reality, she was just digging for more information as to why he didn't want to even pretend date her.

"Well, back when I was in high school, I was a really shy kid. Like really shy to the point I didn't talk much, if you weren't in my group of friends already, chances are you weren't going to be in my group of friends in the future based solely on the fact I was too shy to talk to people." He said as Winter wasn't quite sure where this was going.

"Well, I also had a crush on this one girl in my class, her name was Miranda Alexandra, she wasn't necessarily popular, but that was what I liked about her, is that she seemed like me, but again I was too shy to talk to her, but I remember thinking she seemed so nice, but again didn't really have the guts to talk to her." Jem scratched the back of his head.

"Well one day, she comes up to me and starts talking to me, and that helped a lot because again, I was too shy and didn't have the balls to talk to her." Jem however cringed a bit at what was coming up next.

"Well eventually, I got confident enough to ask her out, and she said yes, and again I was over the moon, and the first date I took her to was standard, just dinner and then a movie." He seemed to trail off a bit.

"But, then I decided, maybe I should make the dates more interactive, you know like something so you really get to know the other person? Show that you have an interest in who they are as a person?" Winter could see where he was going.

"Of course, you don't want to date someone based on looks alone, you want to know how much you have in common." Or at least thats what Winter thought.

"Well...I noticed eventually that whenever we went on those dates, she wouldn't be very talkative, she seemed to refuse to talk to me about anything personal, and even when we got back from the date and texted, she would always give me one word answers. So it bothered me. But again, I don't want to seem like one of those douchebags who puts too much pressure on the girl in the relationship, so I let it slide." And then Jem paused for a bit.

"Until one day, I asked her why she was being so distant, and well, she told me it was because she had just gotten over a breakup with her former boyfriend, and she was hoping that if she was to get back on the horse again, she could feel better, so she saw me, and figured I would be too much of a loser to reject her, so I would be an easy rebound." Winter cringed a bit at that.

"I was confused, I asked her why did she agree to go out with me if that was the case, and eventually she said she was hoping if she faked feelings long enough, then maybe they would become genuine, you know like fake it til you make it. And not going to lie, for a sixteen year old kid, that really stings." Jem said as it took him awhile to get over that.

"So, needless to say, that relationship crashed and burned, and again, I was sixteen, so I didn't know how to cope with that in a healthy matter, so I kind of just went back to being shy, it wasn't until after graduation, that I started to realize I hated being shy and awkward all the time, so that was when I really started taking self improvement seriously." He said as that was one of the reasons he became obsessed with exercise and studying.

"While I do think it helped me learn to be more social and learn to take my self improvement seriously, I still think it was a dick move, and now I don't date anyone on a whim, I remember how much it sucked to have someone pretty much pretend to like you, and it sucked, and I never wanted to do that to anyone." He said as he got that off his chest.

"Well thats kind of sweet."

"Yep, well that and I just got so obsessed with how good I look I completely forgot about women for awhile." Jem said as Winter facepalmed.

"You were telling a nice sweet story, and you had to ruin it by admitting your own narcissism?"

"To be fair, when you work out in the gym and start to see results, its hard to not start to admire yourself, because then you're like 'Oh damn, are those my muscles? Oh damn, I look gooooddd." Jem admitted, he had an odd habit of staring at himself a lot when he first started lifting weights.

"I think you're just weird." Winter said as a matter of fact.

"Ha, but no seriously, truth is the gym really helped boost my confidence, and on top of that, it feels great to see your body improve as well as your physique change, it did wonders for me mentally and physically. Imagine what I would have been like if I never got into that, for all I know I could end up one of those loners on reddit who constantly post about how much life sucks and how no matter what happens, their life will always suck."

He had a point there.

"Still odd, especially since I saw some of your old instagram posts with your gym buddies back in the army."

"What you mean?"

"Well for starters, theres one where you're posing with your friend saying 'Hell yeah bro, you thick." She said as Jem went blank.

"Yeah, like thicc in muscle."

"And another caption was 'Hell yeah bro, you look sexy with a pump.'"

"Well yeah, got to hype your bros up, its the same reason I heart react all my buddies selfies."

"...Men are strange..." Winter said as she wanted to leave the conversation there.

They went from talking about how Jem didn't want to start a fake love, and it ended with him apparently being in love with his bros.


End file.
